Monday Musings: Mullins’ Marvels

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There was an eight-runner juvenile hurdle race at Leopardstown on Saturday, the opening race on what was expected to be a Willie Mullins obliteration of all other stables over the two days of the Dublin Racing Festival, writes Tony Stafford. In the event, he collected eight of the well-endowed prizes on offer, six at Grade 1 level.

I made his horses’ earnings from the winners alone a total of €755K so, with a bunch of places on top, it would easily have topped a million, although it wasn’t always as planned, as you will read later.

Anyway, returning to Saturday’s opener, Willie’s 1-3 favourite Lossiemouth was expected to build on her easy December wins in a Grade 3 at Fairyhouse and a Grade 2 on this track, adding to a ten-length debut success at Auteuil back in April of last year.

No wonder the filly was the long-range favourite for next month’s JCB Triumph Hurdle and that status is unchanged at 13/8 even though she was beaten by two and a half lengths on Saturday. The main culprit was not the winner Gala Marceau, but rather the interference she suffered on the way round.

We marvel at the Mullins magic, but we should marvel more at the money he can manage to drum up from a host of big name owners ready to join the party. Of the eight in Saturday’s field, six were trained at Closutton in Co Carlow. All six were bought after running in France, none at a public auction.

One of those, perhaps inevitably, was Gala Marceau, the beneficiary of Lossiemouth’s travails but clearly decent in her own right. The most experienced in racing terms of the Mullins sextet, she raced four times on the flat as a 2yo in France, winning her final start by five lengths over 1m1f on heavy ground at Le Croise Laroche, the track that’s only a stone’s throw from Lille station, the intermediary stop of the Eurostar before Paris.

Switched to jumps she won both her hurdles, at Compiegne (€20k) and Auteuil (€30k), the latter by 11 lengths on April 30. The next sight of her was in Lossiemouth’s race on St Stephen’s (Boxing) Day when, receiving 3lb, she was a creditable runner-up although beaten seven-and-a-half lengths. She runs in the colours of Honeysuckle’s owner, Kenny Alexander.

Gala Marceau, unsurprisingly, is contesting second spot in the Triumph market. It’s easy to see the appeal for Mullins and Harold Kirk, his principal French racing talent spotter. Apart from the obvious ability, she’s by Galiway, the sire of Vauban, last year’s easy winner of the juvenile championship at Cheltenham for the Mullins stable and a far from disappointing third in yesterday’s Irish Champion Hurdle.

Lossiemouth had only needed a single run for the attention to be drawn to her and for Susannah Ricci’s colours to appear on her when she made that Fairyhouse debut as an eye-watering (with hindsight) 3-1 shot. It was understandable at the time as the 5-4 favourite Zarak The Brave, another import, and carrying the Munir-Souede double green livery, had already won a race by ten lengths since his transfer to Ireland.

Lossiemouth is a daughter of Great Pretender, sire of Mullins’ Benie Des Dieux as well as the Paul Nicholls pair Greanateen and P’tit Zig, so another desirable stallion for the top echelon of owners to salivate over.

Next home in third was Tekao, also a Mullins inmate, in his case a son of Doctor Dino, sire of State Man and Sharjah as well as French-trained Master Dino and Alan King’s doughty performer Sceau Royal. State Man had a big date yesterday. Tekao raced only once in France, in late April in a flat race over ten furlongs at Lyon Parilly, which he won by three and a half lengths, but basically so easily it could have been 33 and a half.

Transferred to Mullins, he started odds-on for his first two hurdles, finishing third of 22 to very useful Comfort Zone at Navan before opening his account in an 18-runner juvenile at Leopardstown’s Christmas fixture, getting the better of Ascertain.

In finishing third on Saturday, ten lengths behind Lossiemouth, he puts the merit of the first two in context and he was improving on the previous form, as Ascertain was now six lengths behind, four times as far as at Navan.

In fifth we had yet another Mullins horse, Gust Of Wind, who had been the subject of a recent ownership change. He was previously owned outright by Barnane Stud until last month following his sole prior start, on September 29, when he easily won a 21k newcomers’ race at Auteuil. He now runs in partnership with the Hollywood Syndicate. Their Il Etait Temps is clearly very smart, having won by ten lengths in a 15-runner novice at Thurles before running Facile Vega to four lengths at Leopardstown over Christmas and they were due to renew internal hostilities in the big novice hurdle yesterday.

Another by Great Pretender, Gust Of Wind started as the 8-1 third favourite on Saturday and clearly will be expected to win any ordinary maiden/novice that the master trainer wants to send him to next time.

Sixth, 28 lengths behind the winner, came the gelding Cinsa, also carrying notable livery, that of Sullivan Bloodstock. A son of little-known (to me, anyway) Tirwanako, he obviously was spotted running well enough, in fourth some way back in Lossiemouth’s Auteuil debut, to attract the attention of Mr Kirk. A 50-1 shot here, he probably finished where expected as was the case of the complete outsider, Jourdefete, the second Ricci runner.

He too had only a single run in France when 3rd of 10 at Vichy in early May. Miles behind Lossiemouth on his Irish debut, he was a similar distance back here, but don’t be shocked when he starts winning nice races when going into handicaps.

Six horses then, mostly seen and acquired last spring and the interesting thing for me is whether they are allocated by the trainer or whether there’s some sort of in-house negotiation before the  ownerships are settled.

Imagine the Riccis, JP, Andy Sullivan and Kenny Alexander bidding away closeted together in a room. Or even separately making sealed bids. Maybe the names simply go into a barrel and the lucky winner gets the horse. Then again, they are all more than lucky and successful enough in life to start with!

Mullins had won three races, all at the top level, on the opening day and added five more yesterday, but he will have been perplexed that his two shortest runners on the day, Blue Lord (1-4) for the Double Greens in the 2m5f Ladbrokes Dublin Chase and, more pertinently, the hitherto untouchable Facile Vega (4-9) in the novice hurdle, were both rolled over.

Naturally, the multiple back-up policy in the Grade 1’s, where hardly anyone else has a hope in face of such strength in depth, meant he still won each of the races.

Blue Lord was comfortably beaten by Gentleman de Mee, the Aintree novice chase conqueror of Edwardstone last April but just ticking over since, while Il Etait Temps wasn’t at all troubled to gain revenge over Facile Vega, but there’s clearly some sort of issue with that long-term banker for his novice hurdle target at Cheltenham.

All seemed serene as he went along at the head of the field In company with Joseph O’Brien-trained one-time Epsom Derby favourite High Definition. Then, at around halfway, High Definition made a mistake and J J Slevin, the trainer’s cousin, was unable to stay on board, leaving the favourite clear.

But in another case of family fortunes, Il Etait Temps challenged the leader around the bend and, once passed, Facile Vega compounded: “he stopped quickly” said Paul Townend. That left Willie Mullins’ nephew Danny to complete a day’s double initiated on Gentleman de Mee, and augmenting his shock winner on Saturday’s opener, all at the expense of Townend bankers.

Naturally, the concluding mares’ bumper, just a Grade 2 but always a pointer to Cheltenham, had a Mullins winner, Fun Fun Fun, allowed to start at 9/4 but a winner by almost ten lengths. Son Patrick shared the limelight here.

That followed two more Willie Mullins wins. State Man made all at the expense of a gallant Honeysuckle in the Irish Champion Hurdle, the mare just edging Vauban for second, so still creditable enough. State Man is clearly Ireland’s top hope of winning the Champion Hurdle, especially if Nicky Henderson forgets to declare Constitution Hill on the day.

We got our first sight of State Man in the UK at last year’s Cheltenham Festival when he started 13-8 favourite in a field of 26 for the County Hurdle and won smoothly. That was the prelude to four consecutive wins at the top level, climaxed by the easy defeat of the dual champion and national heroine yesterday.

State Man showed up over here with a rating of 141 after second place in a juvenile hurdle at Auteuil in May 2020, then after a 19-month absence, a fall in a maiden hurdle at Tramore and a bloodless romp at odds of 1/7 at Limerick.

That County Hurdle entry proved a nightmare scenario for the official and he must still be having palpitations, not just over him, but also another potential bloody nose at that fixture, which was only narrowly averted. He needed the help and courage of fellow Irish hurdler Brazil, once at Ballydoyle, who gave Gaelic Warrior 8lb and a short head beating in the juvenile handicap hurdle.

The handicapper had awarded Gaelic Warrior a figure of 129 and all he had to work with to arrive at it were three runs within just over six weeks at Auteuil the previous spring. He hadn’t won any of them, so when this season started Willie Mullins had a handy novice to go to work with.

Raised only 5lb for the Fred Winter Hurdle run, Gaelic Warrior won his maiden hurdle at rustic Tramore by 86 lengths and a conditions race at Clonmel by 15 lengths. When he appeared for his second handicap, supporting the Festina Lente Charity, and now off 143, itself highly charitable in the circumstances, it was no shock that in a 17-runner handicap, he started odds-on.

Needless to say he won, picking up the €88k prize with aplomb and completing a consolation double on the day for Paul Townend. He has entries in the two novice races next month and I doubt Mullins will favour the County Hurdle with what must be a new figure of at least 155, but we do like to bend over backwards for the invaders.

A Supreme success would catapult him alongside State Man for next year. In the meantime, when the weights for the handicaps come out, I will be scouring the lists, seeking out the least plausible Willie Mullins horse in anticipation of a small early wager, knowing it will start a short-priced favourite – as long as it’s the right one!

- TS

Monday Musings: Trials and Tribulations

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For all last week, owners, trainers and punters were hoping that Cheltenham’s richly endowed and numerically enhanced nine-race card would go ahead, writes Tony Stafford. It did, although it was a close-run thing as the weather only chose to relent the night before.

It might seem churlish to suggest it, but probably one or two trainers (maybe more), their horses’ owners and many of the racegoers that filled the stands, might in retrospect be wishing it hadn’t.

There was £605,000 to be carved up and the big guns were out in force, none bigger than Willie Mullins, who had been celebrating reaching 4,000 career wins earlier that weekend.

His Energumene, owned by Brighton FC chairman and fearless punter Tony Bloom, was expecting to sweep up another fat cheque for winning the Clarence House Chase. The Grade 1 event was added to the card after Ascot’s cancellation as the frost extended its second embrace of winter tentacles the previous Saturday.

With only five to beat and with the most obvious of them, Edwardstone, having bailed out early in his previous race when unseating Tom Cannon at Kempton, it seemed very unlikely that Energumene would not be enhancing his already formidable Rules record of 10-1-1 from a dozen career runs.

The 2022 Queen Mother Champion Chaser, beaten on debut in a bumper on his first run for Mullins in early November 2019, had since gone unscathed until his sole defeat over jumps in the corresponding race to Saturday’s, in its proper home at Ascot a year and a week earlier.

Energumene had led that four-horse affair from the outset but could not hold off the forensically timed challenge by Nico de Boinville on Shishkin. The biggest disappointment for me of the entire Cheltenham Festival 2022 was Shishkin’s apparently inexplicable failure to run his race as Energumene gained his revenge in style.

Shishkin, the favourite that day as he had been in all except one of his races before Ascot last year, simply didn’t go a yard, pulling up.

He has raced only once since, finishing a tired third to Edwardstone in the Tingle Creek Chase at Sandown in early December and much has been made of his non-appearance in the list of entries for the Queen Mother Champion Chase this year, although a supplementary can be made if circumstances change.

Saturday’s market chose to forget Edwardstone’s subsequent lapse at Kempton, preferring to point to his Arkle (for novices) success at last year’s Cheltenham Festival. For most though, while this had the appearance of a match race even though half a dozen pitched up, it looked rather one-sided.

Now though the pair are inseparable in the market for this year’s Queen Mother at around 2/1 each. Which of them won on Saturday? Well, neither. In that eventuality, one or both must have failed to finish for one reason or another? No, both completed, Edwardstone coming to take the lead on the run-in and then being outstayed and headed close home while Energumene ran a listless race in third, six-and-a-half lengths behind.

What could possibly have beaten them? The spoiler of their private battle was Editeur Du Gite, a 14/1 shot trained by Gary Moore, that had been supplemented for the race following his taking advantage of Edwardstone’s exit to win the Desert Orchid Chase and £57k on the second day of Kempton’s Christmas meeting.

There, he set off ahead under non-claiming 3lb claimer Niall Houlihan, and with everyone expecting him to come back, he kept stretching the lead in that Grade 2 contest, winning by 13 lengths from the Skeltons’ Nube Negra.

Grade 2 races are one thing; Grade 1’s against a Willie Mullins champion are quite another. When Houlihan again stepped away in front on Saturday – in a way stealing Energumene’s frequent thunder - again nobody took much notice.

The lead wasn’t too excessive as they came down the hill with the race heating up and the main contenders still in touch, but suddenly the favourite wasn’t moving like a winner. The same wasn’t true though of Edwardstone, and after they jumped the last with the Alan King horse in full flow, the outcome seemed to be a 1.01 Betfair certainty.

Edwardstone duly went past his rival after the last fence, but could not shake him off and Editeur Du Gite battled back to get up close home with his rider never resorting to the whip. Editeur Du Gite has now won six of his 16 chases, three of them around Cheltenham in five attempts. He’s down to 5/1 for the big race, but the market may have over-reacted to that one run.

Alan King seemed happy enough at the outcome and even Mullins was sanguine, but then you can afford to be when you’ve already trained 4,000 winners. Even Mark Johnston can only point to a hundred or so more than 5,000!

The next setback for two more big fancies for the Cheltenham Festival came in the three-mile Cotswold Chase when Dan Skelton’s Protektorat, so upwardly mobile over the past year, and the 2022 Grand National winner Noble Yeats, were expected to dominate.

Instead, it was a pair of Northern chasers prepared by female trainers that took the first two places. For much of the race Ahoy Senor was prominent along with the ever-popular Frodon and Bryony Frost, but then in mid-race he seemed to lose interest and dropped into midfield.

As he marked time, the Ruth Jefferson eight-year-old Sounds Russian swept round on the outside and went for home. Protektorat still looked an obvious threat in second coming down the hill but Noble Yeats had looked sluggish all the way round and was still some way back. Protektorat coud only go on from there at one pace and, as they turned for home, Ahoy Senor and Derek Fox rallied and went on to a hard-fought success. Sounds Russian was a creditable runner-up while Noble Yeats motored up the hill to get within a length of the second at the line.

Emmet Mullins and the Waley-Cohen family, trainer and owners of the Grand National hero will hope when he comes back to Cheltenham in March, they will go a better gallop and there will be more of them – mostly from Ireland no doubt – to make it a truer test. My preference for a bet on him, even though he will have a massive weight, is in the Grand National. Only an eight-year-old, I believe he’s a clone of Red Rum and Tiger Roll and could win at least three of them.

Okay, a couple of short ones had been turned over, but surely now the punters could look forward to the Cleeve Hurdle and a fourth successive victory in the three-mile test for the wonderful Paisley Park. Now an 11-year-old, Andrew Gemmell’s star was still sprightly enough to win the Long Walk Hurdle, another major jumps race salvaged from Ascot, this at Kempton on Boxing Day.

The received wisdom is that Kempton is an easy track and one where you would not expect Paisley Park’s stamina to be as effective as elsewhere, but as the others died at Kempton, he just kept galloping and won easily.

Now on a track he does clearly enjoy, with a Stayers’ Hurdle to go with his trio of Cleeve’s, surely he would make it four. In Dashel Drasher, he had an inveterate pacemaker to ensure a good gallop and that 10-year-old was joined in his role by the upgraded handicapper Botox Has.

As they grouped up going down the hill, Paisley Park was in touch having raced more fluently than usual in the early stages of the race, but Dashel Drasher, showing plenty of dash, quickly looked to have them cooked. And then came an unexpected challenger and not Paisley Park. It was French six-year-old, Gold Tweet, equally adept at hurdles and chases in France, but never yet over three miles, who sprinted up the hill under Johnny Charron to give Gabriel Leenders an unexpected training success at 14/1.

Charron was having his first ride in the UK, but he is a star turn in France where he won the Grand Steeple Chase in 2022. Leenders says he may now be tempted to get the owners to supplement Gold Tweet for the Stayers’ Hurdle but said: “It’s expensive and we’re not rich,” seeming to forget that Saturday’s race carried a first prize of almost £40,000 and owners, trainer and jockey will cop most of that.

It’s nice that sometimes, pre-conceived ideas are confounded. We too easily take the established order as permanent. In racing it is permanent, until they go to post again and as all punters know, any horse can be beaten and at the same time massive-priced animals can win, especially in 2023!  What a refreshing day to see a few fresh faces picking up the big pots!

- TS

Monday Musings: Frustration Abounds

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One week nearer Armageddon, or as UK trainers have come to call it, the Cheltenham Festival, and those trainers have just endured another week without any NH racing, writes Tony Stafford. Hereford last Monday went ahead and now Ffos Las on Monday looks hopeful, but with only 50 days to go, spirits in those jumping yards could hardly be at a lower ebb.

Take Gary Moore. Situated due south of London, between Brighton and slightly further Lingfield, he was looking forward to gorging himself on the fabulous riches made available in the second Winter Million extravaganza offered by the often-maligned Arena Racing Group at Lingfield.

The first and third days, last Friday and this Sunday, interspersed with a flat card on the Saturday, which did go ahead as planned, were to provide a string of valuable races and Moore had fancied runners in most of them.

The Friday abandonment as frost gripped the country for the whole week, stretched the Sunday card to nine races. It offered obvious chances for fast-improving Haddex Des Obeaux, a scintillating winner at Doncaster last time out; emerging long-distance handicap chaser Movethechains; and stable favourite Goshen, who seems to have found his true metier as a three-mile hurdler.

Moore had made his frustrations known after the first long frozen spell in the south and southeast, that one accompanied by a heavy one-shot snowfall that refused to go away. Trainers had already endured the hottest (and driest) summer on record making working on grass gallops almost redundant for much of the year, even in places as well-endowed with them (and permanent staff to maintain them) as Newmarket.

Then, when the ground on the tracks started to become acceptable to even the most ground-dependent jumpers, along came Mr Frost to halt their progress.

So here we are with only 50 days to the Festival, and Moore and also Kim Bailey, who was denied a run both at Ascot on Saturday in the Clarence House Chase and Sunday at Lingfield with Two For Gold will now be looking to Cheltenham next Saturday. The Clarence House has been added to the card to make it another nine-race programme. Hopefully it will enjoy better luck with the weather than Lingfield, and Kim has also described the season so far as “brutal”.

Also added to the normal run of January fare at Prestbury Park is the Glenfarclas Cross-Country Handicap Chase, expunged from its normal December slot owing to the aftermath of the dry summer, but now apparently all – or most! – is well.

The BHA forecast going for the Cross-Country course on Sunday morning was good to soft, soft in places, frozen in places. The BBC Weather forecast for Cheltenham this week promises minus 4 for Monday night, plus 1 for Tuesday and plus 2 for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

It cannot be a certainty that all the frozen bits will have been expunged by Saturday morning, especially with an 11.40 a.m. start for the Triumph Hurdle Trial, with day-time temperatures not expected to be higher than plus 7 at any time this week. We do have, though, around 105 minutes’ extra daylight now compared with the shortest day just over five weeks ago to help the thawing process.

Of course, mention of the Triumph Trial reminds me of that day in 1986 when Tangognat won the corresponding race in my (now David  Armstrong’s) colours, though he got well stuffed in the Triumph itself. It was some (not much) consolation that Brunico, which I originally bought in a package deal from Malcolm Parrish, and had a share in when he won on debut at Windsor for Rod Simpson, was a fast-finishing second for Terry Ramsden to 50/1 shot Solar Cloud, ridden by Tangognat’s twice successful rider Peter Scudamore, now claimed by David ‘the Duke’ Nicholson.

Talking of Rod and Terry, a few weeks back I was chatting to my seafood business-owning friend Kevin Howard, who said one of his regular customers, Denis Rankoff (apologies Denis if Kev got the name wrong!), had been an owner with Simpson “ages ago” and Kevin thought I might be interested in meeting him.

A couple of weeks ago, I called in for some jellied eels and on a very quiet Sunday there was just one other (and also venerable) gentleman there and it turned out to be the said Mr Rankoff. He told me he had been more involved with greyhounds, preferring to be, as he termed it, a “big fish in a small pond” rather than be consumed in the ocean of horse racing, so he didn’t stay long in the business and wasn’t much interested in it either.

“I had a couple of nice wins but when you added it all up, the losers more than outweighed the winners, so I sold my horse and that was that”, said Rankoff..

Of all the horses, the one that won him his money later had a rather big involvement with me, Terry Ramsden and David Wintle, to whom we moved him on, purchasing him out of the Simpson yard. At the time Wilf Storey was making hay with another horse from the Parrish consignment, Santopadre, exiled from Rod with the instruction: “shoot him”, a comment also reserved for Seram, the companion in the box from Lambourn to Co Durham the same day.

The Simpson exhortation did come to pass for poor Seram who almost got Chris Grant killed first day on the gallop when aiming straight for another horse, but Santopadre was actually very talented, winning three in a row, each time carrying plenty of Ramsden money. And, after the third win, by 15 lengths with a double penalty at Wetherby (for two seller/claimer wins), his blue and white colours too. He finished a close fifth in that same Triumph Hurdle, not lasting up the hill as well as the better stayers in a fast-run race.

As I said, Wilf had been winning races with Santopadre, and Fiefdom, and the bookmakers were beginning to panic at the prospect of another Storey gamble, so a plot was hatched. Ramsden bought Topsoil and switched him to David Wintle while we suggested to Wilf that he might want to buy something very moderate but enter him for the same race as Topsoil, and somehow convince the bookies this “secret” horse was the “buzzer”.

He found one from Bob Johnson, Kenny’s father, and the race was also identified, on January 3, 1986, a selling hurdle at Haydock Park. On the strength of his recent winners, Wilf opened an account with one of the major firms with a substantial limit and 45 minutes before the race, fortuitously the first on the card, marched down to the rails and put the whole lot on his horse Darwina.

We had looked closely at the race beforehand and could see only one possible danger, a John Jenkins horse, so Terry’s plan was a big win bet and a forecast. As the time of the race approached, Topsoil and the Jenkins runner were close in the market with Darwina just a shade longer, the firmness encouraged by the fact that Peter Scudamore was booked. He’d ridden Tangognat to success in the New Year’s Day 4yo hurdle at Cheltenham just two days earlier.

The race went pretty much to script. In those days you couldn’t watch, so on the phone we heard as Topsoil got the better of his obvious rival by three-parts of a length with 25 lengths back to the third and Darwina pulled up before halfway. Peter smiled when in the paddock he was told, “you get paid, win or lose!” Darwina was given back to Bob Johnson straight after and Terry, presumably expecting an easier win, asked: “What went wrong?” He expected certainties to win like one!

Back to this weekend, Cheltenham offers a total of £605k for its nine races which also include a £100,000 Paddy Power-backed handicap chase over 2m4f and the three-mile Cleeve Hurdle with 70 grand in the offing. The Triumph Trial, like the big race itself, after many years still supported by JCB, is worth £80k.

Doncaster also are scheduled for Saturday and there’s another £263,000 to be divvied up there. These are the days trainers and owners of good horses need to have to shoot at. Meanwhile, the Irish usually fare much better on the weather front and of course their prizemoney, even for the most mundane card, puts ours to shame, but that’s another story entirely.

  • TS

 

Further to my article last week concerning the death of my friend Roger Hales, his funeral will be at Gorleston (near Great Yarmouth) Crematorium at 11.30 a.m. on Monday, February 20.

Monday Musings: Remembering “Ginger” Roger

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I suppose it will be happening ever more regularly now, writes Tony Stafford. The phone rings and someone says: “Did you know so-and-so died?”

Roger Hales, a great friend of racing, lost to us last week

Roger Hales, a great friend of racing, lost to us last week

Until the call last Tuesday I didn’t know Roger died, and it was only when I did that I realised I hadn’t been getting since before Christmas the almost daily call of “Fancy anything today? I’m just calling to see if you are all right.” Or rather, “all roit”.

Considering he was a year older than me and that from his days as a teenager down the mines near to his Nuneaton home, his breathing was always difficult, he got around walking many fast miles every day until very recently.

The breathing problems became even more difficult in later years when visits to doctors’ medical centres, and even brief stays in hospital to get some much-needed oxygen, characterised his time in his new life in Great Yarmouth, which he enjoyed to distraction especially when he moved within a few hundred yards of the track.

Roger “Ginger” Hales had been a fixture on the country’s Midlands racecourses from the time his father, who ran a betting business in the town, first introduced him to some of the characters of his own life experience.

Occasionally jockeys would come to see Hales senior and, while he did tell me a couple of names and the services for which they would be paid, I think it unfair to besmirch their memory.

I am much less reluctant to relate an anecdote which he loved to tell, about his family’s next-door neighbour, a certain Billy Breen. He was a celebrity in the Nuneaton of the 1960’s when, in common with many people in those days, their telephone was on a party line with next door.

When Billy, stage name Larry Grayson of “shut that door” fame, noticed Roger’s mum had picked up her receiver while he was already talking, he would proceed shamelessly to “camp up” the conversation. “She loved it,” said Roger. “Billy was the nicest man. We were all delighted with his great success on TV.”

Part of the family routine in those days was that they would all decamp every late summer for the big September meeting at Great Yarmouth, where dad would have a pitch at the races and Roger would help while his mother and sisters enjoyed the full holiday experience.

Then there were years training greyhounds to win races all around the country. “One top trainer used to pump them full of steroids,” he recalled. “I got hold of a few of them from him and it took at least six months to get it out of their system, just walking them and giving them proper natural food. Then we would take them flapping (unlicensed racing) and often pull off a gamble!”

Later in life – and this is when I first met him, around 20 years ago - he was running a company making metal garden items, such as hanging baskets. He walked up to me, unannounced, at Yarmouth, introducing himself. He told me how he ran a company employing many staff but that it was going bust as major firms took so long paying their bills for the products they bought.

Within a couple of years, he had left his family, moving permanently, alone, to Yarmouth where he soon became a very popular figure around the town. A few times when I visited for a race meeting and was able to be there for a couple of hours beforehand, we would walk through the market and be stopped every few yards. No mean feat for an outsider!

But the connection with racing continued well into his 70’s and he could often be seen either helping a trainer at the races or driving a horsebox from one end of the country to another. Noel Quinlan was one of those he knew best.

Noel said: “He would do anything for you – even drive down from Yarmouth to Newmarket to muck out or drive a box. Then when he returned the box he would wash it out and leave it much cleaner than when he collected it. He was about the same age as my late brother Michael and he was so sad, as we all were, when he died.”

Roger used to love to come and watch Raymond Tooth’s horses run as we got to know each other better. I needed to be there and often when there was a long trip north, he would insist on driving, usually meeting near Huntingdon. He had been a long-distance lorry driver and had a licence which allowed him to drive larger horseboxes.

One tale involving a much smaller vehicle, a two-hander which needed to be collected in Newmarket; transferred up to Richmond in North Yorkshire where he was to pick up a filly and then on to Wilf Storey in Co. Durham to drop her off, was not without incident.

It soon became obvious to him as he left Richmond and the filly (a two-year-old) settled in, that the partition was faulty, and she was falling into the middle all the time. She had a bumpy ride, poor thing. Then after delivering her safely, making sure to avail himself of Brenda Storey’s legendary Victoria Sponge cake <I always used to bring one back from there!> on his way out of Wilf’s yard, he banged into one of the guarding posts at the entrance, doing a fair bit of damage to the vehicle, less so the stone. I expect it took a degree of soft soap to sweet talk the box-owner and allay his irritation.

Back in 2011, several years earlier than the box incident, we got into a great routine. It was at the time of French Fifteen’s brilliant two-year-old career with Nicolas Clement. After he won his first race near the German border, which we missed, Clement found him three more successive winning opportunities.

Roger would drive down from Great Yarmouth to Hackney Wick, pick me up and drive via a very late Eurotunnel train to the West of France from Calais, usually arriving early in the morning.

We went in July to Chateaubriant, August to Le Lion d’Angers, and in early September to Craon. On  the last-named trip French Fifteen won a very good Listed race at the expense of the favourite, trained by Jean-Claude Rouget, who used to expect to win the race every year.

To say Roger enjoyed the day is an under-statement as after the race he was invited to join us on the podium and conversed for a few minutes with a senior administrator who happened to be one of the Baron Rothschilds. “I was speaking to a Rothschild!”, he kept reminding me, all the way home.

The colt’s next race was a Group 3 at Saint-Cloud, and that was the one time Raymond could attend; so he, Steve Gilbey and me, travelled by Eurostar for his only other defeat as a juvenile apart from his debut, finishing an okay second, but losing just the same.

There were misgivings (both from owner and trainer) about whether he should run in the Criterium International (Group 1) back then, but in the end we bit the bullet; though it was to be me and Roger again. As usual, it was an early pick-up so, knowing his penchant for promptness, I called at 5 a.m. asking: “Are you in the car park?” He replied that, no, he was stuck on the side of the M11 with a broken-down car and a phone with no credit.

Having organised a pick-up to take him and his vehicle back home, I set off to drive to Paris. When FF won in great style, I couldn’t partake of the free-flowing champagne but a one-time (and not especially favourite) divorce client of the boss, John Livock, certainly did enjoy the refreshments. By the time I set off back home for Chelsea and Ray’s house to deliver the massive trophy, I was almost convinced that Livock and not Tooth was the owner!

Within a week, French Fifteen was sold to a member of the Qatar Ruling family. He came to the 2,000 Guineas the following spring and got within a neck of Camelot in a desperate finish. Roger always remembered bumping into Nicolas Clement before the race and having a great chat. As he turned back to us before going in, he said: “What a gentleman, he gave me two owners’ badges.”

Everyone who knew Roger regarded him as a gentleman. His Yarmouth friends Richie Farnese, Gary Holmes, who called me with the awful news, and Malcolm “Murphy” Alexander recalled countless instances of helping infirm older relatives and how he would volunteer at the medical centres when anyone needed to get to hospital.

His friend Vicky Coleman, who he referred to whenever they bumped into anyone as “my babs” has a similar story. Her grandmother was ill with cancer a few years back and Roger “used to take granny everywhere when he still had a car. He was the same with my mum Maureen and my two girls.”

When Covid struck, coincidentally his health deteriorated, Vicky believing his not being able to drive being the major reason rather than the virus. I remember at the time when nobody was supposed to go out, but the buses were still running, he would call and say: “I’m in Norwich” or “I’ve come to Peterborough”. He would say: “No-one’s about, but I managed to get a cup of tea and then I’ll be coming back and probably be the only person on the bus.”

Nobody got better value from their Seniors Bus Pass, or as he would laugh at his frequent later trips to his various medical appointments, “Or the NHS!”

I hate funerals but once this lovely man’s time to be laid to rest is settled, I will move heaven and earth to be there.

- TS

Monday Musings: A Glut of Shocks

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Have you noticed, there seems to have been an astonishing number of long-priced winners of late? Lack of energy has restricted my analysis to a few days from the middle to the end of last week, with starting and finishing points designed to give the most biased slant to prove the argument, writes Tony Stafford.

Thus, I’ll kick off on Wednesday at Hereford when there were four winning favourites but 14/1 and 12/1 scorers. In the evening at Kempton, one winning favourite emerged alongside 25/1 and 10/1 winners with vanquished 8/11 and even-money shots, but the statistician’s delight came at Newcastle at the beginning of the afternoon.

Within half an hour, after the two opening races went to the market leaders, David Griffiths, no stranger to long-priced success, stepped in with 125/1 shot Endofastorm – my mate, Wilf Storey, sent out that 3/1 favourite Going Underground – unfortunately he did.

Half an hour later it was the turn of Keith Dalgleish. His four-year-old gelding Notimeforanother must rank as one of the all-time inappropriately named winners, so soon after the Griffiths filly and in his case just the 100/1.

But there are 100/1 shots and 100/1 shots and this one should never have started anything like that. Indeed, if certain members of the tipping/punter profession had looked carefully at the race, they would have come away with the value bet of all-time. They say you can’t eat value, but this one instance of it was a tasty dish indeed.

The decoy was his run the previous week over the straight one mile, ridden by the same jockey, Billy Garritty. Starting slowly, he trailed the field throughout and was beaten 33 lengths into last place. His rider reported he was never travelling.

He travelled all right on Wednesday, in midfield until nudged along by Garrity two out. He joined the Alice Haynes-trained even-money favourite, Regal Rambler, 110 yards out and beat him by a neck.

That was his fourth racecourse appearance, the second coming in an Aintree bumper where after showing initial promise at Market Rasen, he was the 11/2 third favourite but finished 33 lengths behind the winner.

Hanging under Jamie Moore in the closing stages, he appeared a likely non-stayer, at least at 2m1f on soft ground. The Market Rasen race was over 13.5 furlongs and he had started the 2/1 favourite and finished a good runner-up to the Don Cantillon-trained winner. I’ll keep you in suspense for a little longer as to that horse’s identity.

The previous October, Poetic Music had won the same Market Rasen race on debut for John Butler. She was sold to a new client of Fergal O’Brien’s for 60 grand at Cheltenham soon after and went on to win two more bumpers, including the New Year’s Day one at Cheltenham before finishing sixth to Facile Vega in the Festival Bumper at Cheltenham. She won first time over hurdles before being beaten by the smart Nicky Henderson filly Luccia in a Listed hurdle at Newbury.

The winner of the same 2022 Market Rasen juvenile bumper cost two and a half times as much to winkle away from the shrewd Mr Cantillon, the £150k being paid at that Cheltenham auction by a patron of Ben Pauling’s. Three days before Notimeforanother won at those incredible odds, the Pauling juvenile followed Poetic Music’s example by winning the New Year’s Day bumper at Cheltenham. Fiercely Proud, for that’s his name, could be very smart and no wonder Notimeforanother could win a low-grade 4yo and up novice race for the equally sharp Mr Dalgleish!

Moving on from Wednesday, Thursday at Chelmsford featured 40/1 and 22/1 scorers with no winning favourite and, while Ffos Las was a more even battleground, there were still 16/1 and 12/1 winners in West Wales. As for Wolverhampton, while four favourites did oblige, Clive Cox’s 1/9 shot Captain Pep, in the Middleham Park colours, never looked like pegging back a Tony Carroll front-runner which checked in at 16’s by two comfortable lengths.

Friday was more level pegging, but in less than half an hour on Saturday there were three notable reverses for lovers of short-priced favourites at Sandown, Wincanton and Cork. A safe haven for backers when times are tough is usually the Willie Mullins stable and with 24 winners in the past fortnight, there must have been room for some profit.

But it has taken him 98 runners over the busy Christmas/New Year period to amass those victories (including three yesterday, two long odds-on, at Naas) and 38 of the runners started favourite. One of those to be over-turned was the 1/4 shot Alastar in the opening maiden at Cork on Saturday.

This son of Helmet had smart form in France and Italy as a three-year-old but had not raced since November 2021 when unplaced in a Group 2 race in Italy. Bought for €150k that autumn, he was gelded early last year. So many of the international Mullins/Howard Kirk buys have lengthy preparation times before arriving on Irish racecourses, with everyone fully expecting the formality of a win. It’s usually the longer the gap the more certain it becomes and 4/1 on about him was hardly a shock.

What was surprising was that the Denis Hogan-trained jumps debutant four-year-old Action Motion, a 12-times raced 65-rated non-winner on the flat, could get the better of the 98 RPR-rated gelding by half a length at 20/1.

Two more short-priced reverses immediately preceded the Cork boil-over. First the Gary Moore French import, Bo Zenith, winner of his only previous start in Auteuil, started 4/11 for his UK debut at Sandown but in the rain-softened ground, he faded up the hill behind the Nigel Hawke-trained I Have A Voice, trailing home 27 lengths back in third. Third favourite at 17/2, this sound stayer looks to have a future and could be a candidate for the Boodles Juvenile Hurdle.

Between these two obliterations, the defeat of a 4/6 shot at Wincanton might seem small beer. Kim Bailey had expected his Top Target to follow his previous success at Wetherby, but after racing prominently, he had no answer to the finishing burst of the 50/1 Joe Tizzard contender I Shut That Door who simply sailed past on the run-in to win by more than two lengths.

Bailey was interviewed on Sky Sports Racing after his front-running chaser Moonlighter battled on gallantly to win at Chepstow yesterday and he bemoaned the season that he and his trainer counterparts have been enduring, not least the implications it has had in hindering the preparation of some of his better horses for Cheltenham, which looms barely nine weeks away.

The seemingly never-ending dry summer and then the very cold weather which wiped out jump racing for a week before Christmas have severely restricted most of his horses in how often he could run them. Those trainers who pressed on regardless often were taking risks and for those who haven’t, now realistically there can only be time for one or at a pinch two prep runs if conditions stay suitable from now on.

Mullins though is so powerful that he will again be approaching the Festival with a guaranteed clutch of favourites. Facile Vega, State Man and Dysart Dynamo all strutted their stuff with aplomb in the period in question (not that State Man will be favourite if as expected he takes on Constitution Hill!) and even if six odds-on shots from Wille bit the dust, the punters will not be dissuaded from seizing what they have come to regard as their annual spring piggy bank.

As to Bailey, 28 years on from his amazing Champion Hurdle (Alderbrook) and Gold Cup (Master Oats) double, he still retains all the enthusiasm and skill, now operating from his nicely-developing yard at Andoversford, a few miles outside Cheltenham. Those big wins came five years after his Grand National success with Mr Frisk.

There’s no doubt that with so many promising unexposed types in his care, the belief persists that a second win in one of jump racing’s Big Three could still await him as he enters the later phase of his glorious career.

Having been around for the entirety of that time, I have to say, I can never remember so many massively-priced winners, even a few for him. I believe it’s a function of Betfair’s domination of the betting market coupled with the weakness on-course and the effects of affordability checks.  Maybe the Editor, who was formerly chairman of the Horse Race Bettors Forum, could spell it out for me and you all!

 - TS

[I don’t know, really, though I suspect it’s most likely to be a combination of moderate racing and the uneven distribution of overround – where the top of the market offers tighter prices and the tail fatter odds – since the move to industry SP’s. That, of course, might be hogwash – Ed.]

Meeting Charlie Johnston

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The most predictable thing about Mark Johnston is his unpredictability, writes Tony Stafford. When most Scotsmen would be thinking of First Footing on New Year’s Eve, his mind was set on Last Running as he let it be known publicly that his entries in conjunction with son Charlie at Wolverhampton on that Friday evening would be his last.

That left Charlie Johnston, 32, as the sole licence holder at Middleham’s Kingsley House Stables. That long-standing name nowadays more importantly incorporates the magnificent Kingsley Park with its independent gallops less than a mile from the High Street.

Middleham has a wide range of excellent existing work facilities available to the other trainers in the area, which Johnston used for the longest part of his 34 years in the town. But with the stable size swelling beyond 200 horses, it became clear there was a need to ensure continuity of exercise every day. As anyone who knows Newmarket will tell you, delays of getting onto the gallops if stuck in behind a big string can be frustrating for trainers and cause difficulties for horses with the potential for over-excitement.

Thus Kingsley Park was designed, and is organised in eight self-contained stable blocks, all with access to the most up-to-date swimming pools, water treadmills, and with the veterinary and farriery expertise needed to keep the massive show on the road. They are all within yards from stepping on to the various gallops, be they grass or artificial. Each yard has its own manager, reporting directly to the management team and several assistant trainers, the best-known being the admirable Jack Bennett.

Since qualifying as a vet, Charlie has been increasingly involved in the family business and he, his father, and mum Deirdre form the Board of Directors. It was at their quarterly Board Meeting on December 1st that the suggestion of a more immediate change-over was first mooted. Let Charlie explain.

“When we first applied to the BHA for the joint-licence, which began on January 1st last year, we all had it in our minds that it would probably be something which would continue for four or five years as a partnership. It quickly came down to more like two years as the transition had gone smoothly from the outset.

“Then at the last Board Meeting, Dad said: “What about January 1st?” We looked at each other and everyone seemed to like the idea. It had the obvious benefit of making for a tidy transition.”

The first step was to check with the BHA that it could be arranged in time. Then the owners had to be consulted. Charlie said: “As of January 3rd, none of the owners has disagreed with the new arrangement. Of course, Dad will be here every day as usual and all the planning processes that have been in place for decades to decide what and where we run will continue unchanged.

“Mum will, as ever, be riding out her two lots on racehorses every morning, then go across to look after her eventers. She will also continue travelling the country and the world watching eventers she has with other people. The only thing really that will change in the short term is that, when they go on holiday, the phone won’t be ringing non-stop.”

After initially training in Lincolnshire, Mark and Deirdre Johnston moved to Middleham in 1988 buying Kingsley House which, at one time a decade or so earlier, had a less reputable incumbent in Ken ("Window") Payne, the one-time selling-plate king who I knew originally in the days when he trained in the New Forest.

One of his most famous episodes at that time was when he saddled two horses in a four-runner seller, putting his own apprentice John Curant on the “trier” and Lester Piggott on the wrong one. They were the right one (for Ken) and the wrong one (for the betting public) as, Big Jake I seem to remember, strolled home from Mr Bojangles and the Long Fellow.

It was while at Middleham that Payne took charge of a syndicate horse I organised with fellow Daily Telegraph journalists and habituees of Coral’s betting shop in Fleet Street. These included, bizarrely, two punting band leaders in Mike Allen and Trevor Halling – father of boxing commentator, Nick Halling.

Halling senior incidentally got such a kick from that connection that he made a new career in racing journalism in the south-east and was a long-standing regular at Lingfield and all the Sussex tracks. My friend Keith Walton, who is a former boxer who trains professionals, also coaches several Northern jockeys in the skills of the noble art. Keith, a regular on the racecourse in the summer, has a top prospect in David Crawford, known locally as the Black Panther. He promises that when Crawford next appears on a televised bill, he will ask Nick Halling about his father’s health.

Returning to Payne, a horse called Princehood started for us with the remarkable veteran Louie Dingwall who trained on the beach at Sandbanks, in Dorset, where her shack, with its own petrol pump, would represent at least £1 million worth of real estate nowadays – ask Harry Redknapp! One day, aged 86, and with limited vision, she drove her horsebox all the way to the south of France and won the Grand Prix des Alpes-Maritime and £13 grand with Treason Trial, her own horse.

Princehood, a 300gns auction buy, did nothing while in Dorset, but, sent north, won a BBC televised sprint on a Saturday at Lanark just before it closed in October 1977. In typical Payne fashion, he had told us to back him two days earlier in a modest race at Doncaster where he ran a stinker. Nobody had the foresight to take the 14/1 as we watched with dismay during our work break in the King and Keys pub in Fleet Street that Saturday.

Payne’s time at Middleham had various controversies, one of which was the suggestion that as more owners were attracted to the stable, it outgrew its capacity and there were instances of multiple occupation of boxes, fine with a mare and foal, but less advisable with hard-trained racehorses. Also, his accounting was reputedly off course, with it often taking several more than four quarters in a horse to complete the ownership whole! After his wife had gone off with the singer Gilbert O’Sullivan, Payne reputedly went to live in America with his male hairdresser!

The Johnston days happily have been much more conventional. From the outset in 1988 and by October 2017, in saddling Dominating to win at Pontefract, Mark became only the third trainer to saddle 4,000 winners in the UK. Less than a year later, Poet’s Society (Frankie Dettori) won at York at 20/1 to make it a record 4,194 wins and then, in August last year, Johnston crossed the unconscionable milestone of 5,000 victories when Dubai Mile won at Kempton.

Thus, with just the 5,000 (and a few) to aim at, Charlie set off with a 33-1 fourth at Lingfield on Monday and has runners all week from today (Wednesday). Everyone will be wishing this personable young man all the best.

One thing that hasn’t yet taken much of his attention is the use of the family plane, which Mark flies all over Europe and which Charlie concedes is a massive help in the organisation of their time.

“No, flying the plane is probably something that might happen eventually. There is no doubt that it has been a great advantage to be able to supervise everything on the gallops for two-thirds of the morning and still be down at Ascot or Newmarket in time for the first race at 2 o’clock.

“I’m not sure that as well as handing over the licence, Dad will be too excited about being an unpaid pilot for me; but flying has helped keep us in touch with everything, and it would be a shame if it were no longer available to us” he said. It would also make that lovely grass runway just behind the barns a severe waste.

Mark Johnston is relatively young at 63, compared with other senior trainers like Sir Michael Stoute and John Gosden, the latter now named on a joint-licence with son Thady. But, as Charlie says, “He didn’t want to go on indefinitely. He and Mum have built all this up from nothing, and he never wanted it to just fritter away. I’ve no intention of that ever happening!”

Don’t worry   - it won’t!

- TS

(Late) Monday Musings: The Ol’ One-Two

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You have a mare like Epatante, winner of a past Champion Hurdle, successful in 11 and placed in seven more of her 19 career runs and you now know – having witnessed Aintree last year, that she probably ought to be contesting races of 2m4f up, writes Tony Stafford.

With the weather as it has been and the Ascot course’s susceptibility to rapid changes of going, Nicky Henderson was pushed into allowing her to take on stable star – sorry, world phenomenon – Constitution Hill as the calendar compressed when the Fighting Fifth came along.

Instead of the queen, she became the high-maintenance Queen Consort, by her liege’s side until turning for home and then deferring graciously while accepting a £20k pay-day for her trouble.

Once the pattern was set, who was to complain when the old one-two was set in motion again for yesterday’s Ladbrokes Christmas Hurdle? While there were five starters, the box which brought the big two to Sunbury might just as easily have been transporting the elite pair across Lambourn for a routine gallop.

As they turned for home, Highway One O One had the temerity to sit in between his betters, still just second as the mare started to flex her muscles. You could not have predicted what happened from that point based on what you had seen until that point, but the evidence of Cheltenham last March and Gosforth Park last month gave the game away.

Mark Johnson’s commentary told it all. Just over a length before two out, three lengths from Epatante on the way to the last; stretched to eight at that final flight and once he met it running, a 17-length margin on a track where distances are never exaggerated unlike many courses in winter ground.

For two little spins behind Constitution Hill, Epatante has picked up around £50k this season and is now that amount short of £1 million in career earnings. Nicky Henderson seems to be favouring going straight to the Festival with this best hurdler I have ever seen and rightly so, I’m sure.

It’s that final kick that is other-worldly. Horses can finish well: he finishes them off and with no suggestion of any weakness; ground or track, style of racing – he has it all.

The Irish must be hoping that somehow his level of ability suddenly drops off, but if Henderson has acquired anything in a training career exceeding 40 years, it’s knowing how to win a big race with a favourite. And even he has never had a favourite like this one.

I was delighted when I saw him at the Horserace Writers and Photographers lunch after he collected his Order Of Merit award for his outstanding career. He was truly chuffed and I told him I thought it well deserved. The shy nature that often comes out in his dealings with the media was there all through that afternoon.

His reputation, already secured, will now have the added insurance, as with Sir Henry Cecil and Frankel, of having his best-ever horse towards the end of his career. It’s probably a case of how long he, Michael Buckley and the horse can be bothered with steam-rollering good (but not good enough) opponents.

I was less delighted to pick up Covid there, after two and a half years of escaping it. I got it mildly, but you never know what’s underneath. At least, it’s not like being a little bit pregnant!

It was a great day for heroes old and new at Kempton yesterday and if anyone thinks that Kempton is a sharp track, the result of the redirected Long Walk Hurdle, from a frozen this time Ascot, would have entertained second thoughts at least.

Here that great stayer Paisley Park came from the back of the field to out-finish Goshen – in the new long-distance role which he can adorn – and Champ by an emphatic margin in a domestic private affair. The Irish will be out in force at Cheltenham in March, but Andrew Gemmell’s heroic 10-year-old can be relied upon to keep his end up.

Times are often misleading but if you had an involvement with Rare Edition, the Charlie Longsdon novice who easily won Monday’s Kempton opener, you would be thrilled to see that his winning time was only two seconds slower than that recorded by Constitution Hill. A seven-length winner, it would be great if this initially non-winning graduate from the Irish point-to-point field, but now unbeaten in four for Longsdon, could challenge the stars next March.

One invader from Ireland that could be there to challenge him is the one-time Derby favourite, High Definition, who made a winning hurdles debut at Leopardstown from the Joseph O’Brien stable ten minutes before Rare Edition showed his paces.

High Definition had won his first two races as a juvenile, including a Group 2, before going into winter quarters with the endorsement of Joseph’s father Aidan ringing in the professionals’ ears. Even when he came back late and looking lazy in the Dante, the story still held over logic, but he never made it to Epsom and then never looked in with a chance when he did get his chance in a Classic on the Curragh in late June.

Until yesterday, High Definition had gone more than two years without winning – his best performance being a second to Alenquer in the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup over ten furlongs in May.

Because there are so many horses that want for some inexplicable reason to take on Messrs Mullins, Elliott, de Bromhead and, yes, when he has a suitable one, O’Brien junior, you get the sort of field that faced High Definition. Twenty-seven runners around Leopardstown, but happily that’s a big, wide track, and it’s made easier as self-selection probably boils this down to three lots of nine.

The old instruction by the UK starters in the days of Gordon Richards either side of WW2 and the old 'gate' starts of “triers at the front” is an approximation to how it works in Irish (and some British) novice races today. They quickly sort out into manageable groupings – three races in one.

Just a look at the first seven there: O’Brien, from Jessica Harrington, Willie Mullins, Peter Fahey, de Bromhead, Mullins again and Gordon Elliott, tells a tale if not a definitive one. The other 20 have to look after themselves, although there’s some pricey types back there too on probably different time-schedules with handicaps in mind for many.

The Racing TV shrewdies – and Boxing Day’s lot, which included Dave Nevison, were sharp enough – noticed High Definition is still  a colt, until next Sunday at any rate when he becomes a horse – of course! The Coolmore NH stallion roster is a highly lucrative end of the business and they reasoned that could be his magnum opus.

It was only on December 20th that High Definition morphed from the usual Coolmore owner group to Mrs J Magnier’s sole possession. I’m sure the others can come back in if and when they wish. I’d love to see High Definition at Cheltenham, possibly measuring up to the more NH-oriented Rare Edition, who showed his paces just 10 minutes later.

Those same Racing TV boys seemed to think the Triumph Hurdle is all but won already, a pretty complacent view at this stage. The Willie Mullins-trained Lossiemouth, another of those unbeaten French purchases, won her graded race for juveniles in almost five seconds slower time than High Definition earlier in the card, but she impressed Dave in particular.

She did win as she liked, making it three easy victories in three. A rare bargain from France at €14k before she had run, she is by Great Pretender, from the family of smart flat-racer Lord Glitters. She must be one of the cheaper buys to grace the Cheltenham-voracious Ricci colours.

Once more, Coquelicot has run in the couple of days before my article, at Kempton yesterday for a 3m mares’ handicap hurdle with six in opposition. She beat a Dan Skelton rival in West Balboa last time at Sandown and this time had the favourite Get A Tonic from the same source ten lengths behind. Alas, on revised weight terms and after a more contested early lead than she's recently encountered, she gave best to the aforementioned Charlie Longsdon-trained Glimpse Of Gala, the rest of the field strung out behind at five length intervals. Hard luck, Mr Editor and partners, but she'll be winning again soon.

- TS

Monday Musings: My Boy Micky

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After a totally blank week of jumping and not much some-weather racing either, a £5k to the winner race ought not be taking much of my attention as we wait for the elements to relent in time for the big Christmas programmes in the UK and Ireland, writes Tony Stafford.

The Irish took the first step back to normality as Thurles returned with a nice pre-Christmas card yesterday and Lingfield may well provide yet another surprise in its new-drainage incarnation by welcoming jumping back to the UK later this morning. [Sadly not, Ed.}

Recently, Gary Moore described the 2022-23 jumps season as his “worst-ever”, referring to one of his local tracks, the above-mentioned Lingfield, as the only one where he has found “proper soft ground”. Moore cites the dry summer; low sun when racing does go ahead eliminating hurdles and fences in many races, and unsuitably fast ground when racing is actually on.

Now the latest spate of abandonments – sometimes delayed until the horses are in the paddock ready to go for the opening race or while horses are still arriving at the tracks – has added to the difficulties. Horses need to be readied and kept up to scratch in anticipation of racing’s proceeding, even though, as Gary says, they know it’s futile. It has all made it hell for trainers and most importantly for the people that pay the bills – the owners.

The lack of clarity of thought descended to a new level of wishful thinking from officialdom on Saturday when Polytrack fixtures, at Lingfield and Chelmsford, due to be televised on ITV4 amid much trumpeting that terrestrial television was keeping the racing show on the road, both grudgingly had to accept defeat after two morning inspections each.

I had occasion to talk to Roger Teal soon after he had arrived with his intended runner at the Lingfield stables at around 9.a.m. in the full knowledge that a second inspection was imminent. He said: “I’ve just got here, it’s minus 5, what do you think?” If it were me, I don’t think I would have waited for an official announcement and a similar situation caused an identical outcome 85 miles across the snow-covered deep-frozen Home Counties around the M25 in deepest Essex.

I had been at Chelmsford nine days earlier when Becky Smith had come on a mission to ride a couple of Micky Hammond runners at the evening meeting there. One fourth and one unplaced did nothing in much-needed points towards her wavering challenge for the amateur riders’ flat crown and she has also been frustrated that a similar close bid for the lady amateurs’ jumps title has also stalled.

With time very short, she conceded she will have to try again next year, but her attitude sums up the entire ethos of her boss, Micky Hammond, and his assistant Gemma Hogg, Becky’s elder sister.

I remember Micky as a top NH rider for Reg Akehurst among others in the South in the 1970’s and 80’s before he went north to ride for George Moore at Middleham and never came back to his native Surrey. Amazingly, he has been training since 1990 and this year equalled his previous best flat-race tally of 19, set in 2015, when Carnival Zain won for the fifth time on August 26.

For the next three months, while this hard-working dual-purpose handler continued to send in winners over jumps, the wish to set a flat-race personal best looked, like Becky’s twin challenges, likely to be frustrated.

Yesterday, having spoken to the horse’s owner, Hammond decided to send Myboymax down to Wolverhampton, a track where he has had amazing success. Myboymax, according to the trainer, “had no chance”, and he added, “the owner hoped he might beat one”.

While favourite Lady Percival, attempting a third consecutive course and distance win in a row, set the pace, Aiden Brookes sat last but in touch off an even gallop. Turning for home it was clear that two were going better than the leader as first Alan King’s Thunder Ahead and then Myboymax went past, the latter staying on the better at 66/1.

That was by no means the only big-priced winner for this under-rated handler, whose 2022 prizemoney tally of £189k is more than £50,000 above his previous best set in that vintage 2015 season.

What is uncanny is that, while there have been 27 jumps winners this season, the prizemoney earned differs by less than £1,000 at £188k in that discipline. That is sure to increase a good deal in money and numbers and he is within only six of matching last season’s win figure. In 2022, adding the 19 jumps wins from the turn of the year to the end of last season on April 23, to the 27 and 20 flat, his calendar tally is 66 wins.

Hammond has few major owners, dealing mainly with locals and partnerships. There is a small involvement with Middleham Park Racing, but ironically it was from that ownership when trained by Richard Hannon, that Myboymax was bought for just £800 at Doncaster sales on October 22, two years ago.

Since then, the Myboycharlie gelding has run 22 times for five wins, five second places and six thirds, earning around £30k. It’s not easy at bargain-basement level, but Myboymax has done far more than anyone was entitled to expect. That’s the measure of Micky Hammond.

**

The big news of the weekend was, of course, the revelation that Frankie Dettori would restrict himself to one more year of money-spinning riding before retiring after the 2023 Breeders’ Cup.

There is no question he has been the supreme big-race rider of his generation, neatly taking over as Lester Piggott left the scene. The torrent of knowledgeable trainers who have signalled his imminent retirement with accolades of the highest respect and indeed affection are a true indication of his uniqueness.

Sometimes you don’t know what you’ve lost until it’s gone. In some ways that was true of Lester. In the case of Dettori, there is no fear of that.

In a way it’s hard to know what to expect from the middle age portion of his life. Will he bother with racing as, say, an agent to owners? Many would queue up to be seen with him. Will it be enough? Then there is his own big family and the children to guide through the teens and 20’s.

So many of the brilliant rides and incredible horses will always be there to see repeatedly, with no doubt the two Racing television channels battling over the next week – if racing continues to be as bleak – to out-cover each other with highlights of his career.

For me, I just need to open my cabinet and remember the time in 1996 when we collaborated on a book, “A year in the life of Frankie Dettori”. It was already in type and about to go out to publishers when September 28 happened. Seven wins out of seven at Ascot and we had had to find a way to include it in the chronicle of his year.

In those days everything had to be put into metal type on linotype machines, so anything you wanted to add, had to be as done as a prefix or suffix. The former solution was agreed with literary agent, Christopher Little – sadly no longer with us and the man in the same role in the Harry Potter books – and Peter Burrell, Frankie’s commercial manager who still holds that position a quarter-century on.

For me it’s enough to look at the front cover and the beaming smile that has become renowned around the world over the decades. Apart from the title, there’s a single quote lifted from the Daily Telegraph – I would guess from the pen of the late John Oaksey.

It says: “Frankie Dettori possesses the looks of an innocent choir-boy, the lifestyle of a loveable rogue, the dress style befitting a Milanese millionaire and the riding skill of Wild Bill Hickock.  What more needs to be said about this singular genius?”

  • TS

Monday Musings: Weather and a Two Mile Monopoly?

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Cork managed to race yesterday as indeed, rather more surprisingly, did Southwell, but when we will get some more jumping – in the UK at any rate – is possibly more open to question, writes Tony Stafford.

Today’s two cards have already gone and the Arena Racing Company, which runs Southwell, can giveth with one hand and taketh away with another. Both Lingfield, with an additional, and Wolverhampton, with a scheduled evening card are in the Arena stable.

I was at Chelmsford City briefly the other evening and Neil Graham, their ever-present boss, was anticipating his track might be in line for some of the more 48-hour emergency meetings that trigger when jumps cards are in the process of being lost.

He said that he hadn’t been lucky in the ballot yet, unlike all the others, but reasoned Chelmsford’s turn might be near. “Those tracks that already have been lucky, cannot reapply for ten <or did he say 14?> days”. Chelmsford race on Thursday, so that must be a pre-programmed date.

Fixtures are power in racing. No wonder Southwell battled so hard to keep their fixture alive, employing frost covers and delaying the morning inspection to 9.30 a.m. in the hope that any morning warming after a freezing night, will have had maximum effect. Watching the racing, everything looked fine. Well done, Arena, and Ben Pauling who had a nice double on the card.

Sometimes we try to make bricks where there is no straw. If you will excuse me for once, I’m a little under the weather – that sort of annoying cold that provides alternate nostril routes for moisture to trickle down the face at most inopportune times. As a result, this will be a case of short-changing the readers and hopefully the editor will take a charitable view.

Energumene took the opportunity to return to action at Cork in the Bar One Racing Hilly Way Chase. The best two-mile chaser – possibly for all this millennium [with apologies to Moscow Flyer, Master Minded, Sprinter Sacre and Altior – Ed.] – had to concede 10lb to the two horses that finished immediately (but miles) behind him while the second favourite, Master McShee, who was off level weights, finished a long last having badly burst blood vessels.

Prize money was a sliding €59k, €19k, €9k with €4k for the hapless invalid. Willie Mullins often provides multiple entries in Champion Hurdle eliminators through the year, but he refrained from doing so here. The Henry De Bromhead-trained and Rachael Blackmore-ridden Epson Du Houx was the beneficiary of Master McShee’s misfortune, not that trainer – or owner Gigginstown House Stud – needs a hand-out, 15 lengths back in a welcome back exhibition.

It is hard to see from where serious competition will come for Energumene in the immediate future, save of course Edwardstone, who stated his case for the Queen Mother Champion Chase with that superb effort at Sandown in the Tingle Creek Chase last weekend. That put paid to Greanateen and Shishkin, for the time being at least. But Energumene, like stablemate Facile Vega in the Supreme Novice Hurdle, has built an air of invincibility that makes quotes of even money for next March look value indeed.

Events on the flat continue apace overseas and Ryan Moore had another inflation-busting pick up in one of the races on Hong Kong’s biggest days at Sha Tin yesterday. Riding the six-year-old Wellington for Hong Kong-based English trainer Richard Gibson, Moore added this near £1.3 million first prize to the Japan Cup a fortnight earlier, and again with a weaving through the field ride.

In Tokyo, there was a mile-and-a-half to make his run with Vela Azul on their way to collecting that £2.6 million. It still took a gen of the rarest kind to manage it. Here it was just six furlongs but still Ryan, in my estimation riding at his best since before the serious injury a few years back which he was understandably not keen to draw attention to, was sublime.

He gave Wellington time to find his stride, brought him steadily through to challenge just before the last half-furlong and the prize was his. You can just imagine him licking his lips at some of the Middle Eastern riches that he hasn’t always been in line to challenge for. I bet William Buick and the other Dubai Carnival regulars wouldn’t mind if he kept clear of Riyadh and Meydan next month and onwards.

  • TS

Monday Musings: Vindication for the Absentee Triumvirate

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The fallout from that unfortunate Ascot meeting last month continued at Sandown on Saturday when the third member of the famed Absentee Triumvirate made just as emphatic a statement as the other two had signalled a week earlier at Newcastle, writes Tony Stafford.

In all, there were 14 non-appearances that frustrating Saturday afternoon, when faster than expected going was the principal reason for the wholesale withdrawals. But, for the crowds that descended as ever at the Royal racecourse, only three really mattered.

That Constitution Hill, L’Homme Presse and Edwardstone could all stay in their boxes on one day was a kick in the teeth for racegoers. For their owners, and respective trainers Nicky Henderson, Venetia Williams and Alan King, the decision has taken only two weeks to be fully justified in each instance.

Constitution Hill, thrillingly in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle, and L’Homme Presse, grittily and with authority in the Rehearsal Chase, both at Newcastle a week after Ascot, did their bit to a nicety. Then at Sandown on Saturday, last season’s Arkle Chase winner Edwardstone contrived to give a major shake to betting on the Queen Mother Champion Chase at the Festival next March.

His nine-length demolition of Paul Nicholls’ Greaneteen in the Tingle Creek Chase was only half the story. Six lengths further back was Shishkin, the one-time Great White Hope of UK jump racing and Nicky Henderson’s nominated successor to Sprinter Sacre and Altior and still highly enough regarded to start even-money in this deep Grade 1 field of top two-mile chasers.

Fourth just behind him was the Joseph O’Brien-trained Gentleman De Mee, the same J P McManus horse that had ended Edwardstone’s winning run of five at Aintree last year. (Aintree it was where L’Homme Presse’s Cheltenham-embellishing five-timer also culminated).

It wasn’t just Gentleman De Mee who got a revenge pasting. It was probably the fact that Edwardstone had been a cab-hailing 23 lengths behind Shishkin in the 2020 Supreme Novice Hurdle that first suggested to Alan King a switch to fences might be a strategic move to avoid that horse in the immediate future.

Edwardstone’s comeback run the following November brought an acceptable fifth in the Greatwood Handicap Hurdle, but the initial try at chasing, the following month at Doncaster, ended in a premature conclusion when he unseated his rider at the fourth fence.

After finishing off that season with some solid runs back in handicap hurdles, King was ready for a second shot, but again there was a non-completion, at Warwick. This time, though, it was no fault of his as he was moving in the style of a possible winner when brought down four out.

Since then, Aintree in April apart, it’s been a story of onwards and upwards and, with hindsight, the only shock about Saturday’s race is that he started 5/1. Now he’s only 7/2 second favourite for the championship among two-mile chasers, that market understandably headed at 6/4 by Shishkin’s nemesis, Energumene.

That Willie Mullins champion has yet to appear this term, but we did get a first sight of the season of the Cheltenham Festival (and even more emphatic Punchestown) Bumper winner, Facile Vega. He must rank as one of the best-named animals around, as every one of the five races he has contested has been a Walk In The Park, Facile indeed. Of course, mum was Quevega, who only stopped at six Mares Hurdle wins at Cheltenham because she was feeling broody!

Facile Vega started over hurdles at Fairyhouse on Saturday and the backers who accepted 1/9 about his chance never had a moment’s doubt that they would be collecting. A Gordon Elliott sacrificial object was offered up as token opposition. An Mhi, also by Walk In The Park and half-brother to top-class Slate House, might well be all right, indeed pretty useful, but Facile Vega had 14 lengths to spare with the rest of the 16 runners trailing behind, their presence more a case of autograph hunting than competition. He looks the same at the end of his races as at the start. A true phenomenon!

https://youtu.be/Vh2sR-3ULwQ

That’s the Supreme sorted then, and you must sympathise with Gary Moore, also on the mark on Saturday with one of the best from last season’s Festival Bumper. His Authorised Speed, in finishing fifth, was first home of the UK contingent, and before Saturday had won easily first time over hurdles at Lingfield late last month.

He got some more valuable match practice to open the Sandown card and, in spite of a last-flight blunder, still had more than six lengths to spare over a well-regarded Henderson newcomer who received 5lb.

Gary never shirks a challenge and will probably still target Authorised Speed at Cheltenham, as he will Hansard. The latter, a most impressive debut winner at Huntingdon yesterday in a hot novice hurdle on his first run since being bought for £48k out of Charles O’Brien’s yard after winning a Ballinrobe bumper, has obvious potential for a constantly upwardly mobile operation.

We mentioned last week the similarity between the conundrum Henderson was placed in the future campaigning of his two smart novice hurdlers from last season and that six years previously when Altior and future dual Champion Hurdle winner Buveur D’Air needed separating. Again there was a JP issue when  Constitution Hill and Jonbon went to Cheltenham last year with mixed opinions in the yard as to which was the better. In the event, it was a no contest, Constitution Hill coming out on top by 22 lengths but with Jonbon second.

Perhaps surprisingly, that was still good enough to beat a trio of Willie Mullins challengers including the 2021 Festival bumper runner-up Kilcruit, third, and Bring On The Night fourth. Mullins might have had one in the first two though as Dysart Dynamo was going easily when falling three from home.

Henderson decided to go post-Cheltenham to Aintree with Jonbon, a mission he accomplished with a hard-fought victory, but there has been nothing hard-fought about his first two chase runs at Warwick and now Sandown on Saturday. In winning by eight lengths from Boothill, he was beating one of the beneficiaries of the Great Ascot Disappearing Act.

Harry Fry’s seven-year-old had been the recipient of the £65k first prize in the Hurst Park Handicap Chase, the race intended for Edwardstone.

Now that Aintree has separated its two previously joined at the hip big autumn handicaps over the Grand National fences, both the Grand Sefton, at the original date, and turn-of-the-month Becher Chase have attracted big fields.

Saturday’s version provided a big long-distance double in valuable handicap chases on successive weekends for the Skeltons. Their Ashtown Lad finally brought all his promise over several seasons to fruition in the style of a horse that could one day go well in a Grand National.

The success followed last week’s Coral Gold Cup win at Newbury for Le Milos, both horses getting exceptional rides from Harry Skelton, happy to have won a jockeys’ championship but happier still that all his energies can be put to the family business.

You could expect both horses to be among the entries for the 2023 Grand National, but I fear those two and pretty much everything else will have to work hard to get past the present incumbent Noble Yeats. He had a nice sideways look at some of the obstacles he encountered last April when he scooted round three miles, one furlong of the Mildmay Course on Saturday in the Many Clouds Chase, a £45k Grade 2 contest.

In the old days the perceived wisdom was that once horses win the Grand National, not only do they lose their speed, but they also find the hike in their ratings prohibitive. In out-speeding such smart performers as Dashel Drasher and Ahoy Senor in the last quarter mile on terms akin to their respective handicap ratings, Noble Yeats is clearly still improving – and fast! The Emmet Mullins-trained and Robert Waley-Cohen-owned seven-year-old could run up a sequence in the great race to challenge the memory of Red Rum and Tiger Roll.

Noble Yeats was the youngest winner of the race for more than 80 years. He is the first seven-year-old to have been successful since Bogskar in 1940. He was rated 147 going into the National this year and that had risen to 160 before Saturday. It looks sure to be set for another small increase, but weight may be less crucial than handling the fences at Aintree.

The two greatest Grand National exponents of my lifetime both began their careers in the race as eight-year-olds, which gave them plenty of time for multiple challenges and successive wins.

After all that I need to return briefly to one of the few races on infamous Ascot Saturday that wasn’t significantly affected by non-runners. That was the fillies’ hurdle race when many thought Coquelicot might have been flattered because basically Rex Dingle rode the pants off his rivals, getting a lead they couldn’t peg back.

Therefore, when she turned up again for another very strong mares’ race at Sandown on Saturday, they all knew what was coming – if they didn’t, they needed locking up! With Aidan Coleman taking over, ‘Cookie’ again made all the running, this time with some classy females snapping at her heels for the last mile. I told the owner/editor two weeks ago that Ascot was merely the start, rather than the end of her success story.

(Also, for the class of race, the £8k and not a lot more to the winner, looked meagre in the extreme for 0-130 animals. But the sporting owners that make up this fun syndicate operation put Saturday winners a long way over expensive dinners!). Don’t worry boys and girls, there will be other big days from this lovable mare!

  • TS

Monday Musings: Of Champions – Past, Present and Future

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The minute the decision was made to pull Constitution Hill out of a probable exhibition round that was going to double as his return to action at Ascot last weekend, you knew Nicky Henderson would merely shrug his shoulders and switch him to Newcastle, writes Tony Stafford.

What about 2020 Champion Hurdle heroine Epatante, long since pencilled in for a third consecutive challenge after one and a half wins (she shared the 2021 Fighting Fifth Hurd1e with Not So Sleepy)? Tough, she can run too, he reasoned. As I said here last week, he has plenty of previous.

The net effect: J P McManus, instead of collecting the owner’s share of £64,710, cedes that to Michael Buckley and gets instead £24,380. Lady Blyth, whose Not So Sleepy finished well to get within two and a half lengths of Epatante on ground faster than ideal, collected half of what would have been the case. Then again, J P has become used to that sort of thing over the years.

While Nicky looked on from Newbury, animatedly showing the cameras a real anxiety at the outcome, Buckers made the journey and shared in the wonder of it all with the viewers. Meanwhile, back at Newbury, Hendo was resplendent in the Cossack-style hat he had bought at the Peter O’Sullevan lunch on Thursday, a midwinter accoutrement for the master commentator, a man rightly still revered seven years after his death at the age of 97.

That generous gesture would have given Nicky some brownie points. J P is a leading light in the annual organisation of the charity event in memory of his late, great friend, which has provided so much welcome help to good causes, never needed more than in today’s straightened times.

For Henderson, the sight of Constitution Hill effortlessly drawing away from his older, female stable companion to the tune of 12 lengths must have been received with a mixture of pride and not inconsiderable relief. It may also mean that the three-year stranglehold on the top spot in hurdling by mares is about to end.

The trainer’s percentage remained whatever it is now of the £89k for Newcastle, on top of his automatic share in another £92k over two days at Newbury principally. On Friday J P McManus’ Champ – perhaps just as well – held off the fabulous finish of old adversary Paisley Park in the Coral Long Distance Hurdle, a win augmented by impressive novice winner Jet Powered earlier.

On Saturday, smart bumper performer Luccia stepped up in a very competitive fillies’ novice hurdle with a flawless performance on debut, almost in the Constitution Hill class, and First Street also impressed in the graduation hurdle against high class opposition. To complete the borderline obscenely successful weekend, Touchy Feely was an appropriate winner for Seven Barrows at Doncaster.

I have two post-scripts to the “do”. Ben Pauling was hard to reach on Friday morning, and when, finally he was contactable, he explained how tired he had been, understandable in view of the fact he got home from lunch at 1 a.m., replicating the sort of irresponsible behaviour that many used to exhibit at the annual Horserace Writers’ Awards lunch in London.

That pre-Christmas staple goes on at Lancaster Gate next Monday and I have received a welcome and most unexpected invitation. I promise I will make it home before midnight. (The following Monday we have family tickets for Cinderella. I better get into practice!)

The other amusing incident concerned a random meeting in the gents, mid-lunch between Henderson and Not So Sleepy’s trainer, Hughie Morrison. Hughie relates: “He wasn’t interested how Sleepy would run, just whether we would knock over one or other of his horses at the start or at the first hurdle.

“He asked, “which way does he hang?”, to which I replied: “Wherever the other horse happens to be!” That hardly placated him but, obviously, on the day he was as good as he ever has been and ran a blinder. Then again, going into last year’s Champion Hurdle, Sleepy was the highest-rated UK hurdler and his latest Cesarewitch run shows how unwise it is ever to under-estimate him.”

Top male hurdlers do not have an alternative championship race at the Cheltenham Festival, so trainers not keen to take on the now 4-7 shot Constitution Hill in the Champion, must either grin and bear it or wait for the 2m5f Aintree Hurdle. The mares have a couple of options at Cheltenham, and it would not be a shock if Epatante looked elsewhere after this summary lesson from her younger colleague.

What intrigues me more is the Honeysuckle situation that confronts Henry De Bromhead. His mare is on 16 wins unbeaten with two Champion Hurdles on the board. Does she carry on regardless and try for the hat-trick in the knowledge that her toughest challenge and most talented rival awaits? Or does she slip into a mares’ race to extend the unbeaten record?

You might almost wish her to have a hiccup in one of her prep races on the way. Such as being carried out at the start or first hurdle – don’t suggest Not So Sleepy! - so that it wouldn’t be numerically quite so vital. Then again there would be no shame or stud career implications in 16 and a couple more unbeaten and a second to Constitution Hill. If she did beat him – partisan Irish delirium and equine fame for as long as horses race over jumps awaits her. I hope they will meet next March for the Big Showdown on Prestbury Hill.

It's the big races that inevitably attract the most attention and are vital for the major stables that they collect their share of them. Over the past few years, the Dan Skelton stable has made a conscious decision to reduce its summer activity for a corresponding increase in concentration on the top end.

As the horses came to the closing stages of the Coral Gold Cup at Newbury on Saturday, Harry Skelton on his brother’s Le Milos was being vigorously pursued by two David Pipe-trained horses, Remastered and Gericault Rogue. Going to the last Gericault Rogue was seen to be tiring just as Remastered came on, seemingly about to atone for last season’s unlucky fall four from home when going like the probable winner.

Yet, hard as he strived, Le Milos found that little bit more to deny him. The £142,000 the horse brought his owners, the Jolly Good Partnership, tipped Skelton over the £1 million mark for the season, for the eighth time in succession. He has 54 wins to his credit.

That makes him the nearest to former boss Paul Nicholls, who had three victories over the Newbury weekend taking his tally to 70 and earnings of £1,161K. Most wins have been collected by Fergal O’Brien, nearer the old Skelton model with summer activity, but that alone cannot explain away 90 wins. It’s almost a rewind to the old Martin Pipe days.

Martin’s son has been doing extremely well this season already and despite missing the big one on Saturday, he’s now on a faster-than-recently 50 for the season. Had the Skelton horse departed at the last fence – not that anyone could have wished such an eventuality – Pipe would have been pushing £800k rather than £634k!

Nicky’s 35 wins so far have brought him neatly onto a shade over half a million and with the massive expectations of Constitution Hill, Luccia and novice chase prospect Jonbon, all set to clean up in their various categories barring mishap, he’ll be making up the ground rapidly from now on.

Henderson agreed that the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton would be the obvious step for Constitution Hill, and that was the next step for his 2008 winner of the Fighting Fifth, which was run at Wetherby as Newcastle was off games.

At that time Ian Turner, now racing manager for the McNeill family, was the man behind a sponsorship offering a £1 million bonus for a horse that won all three races culminating in the Champion Hurdle.

Punjabi won that Wetherby leg and by coincidence Turner was at the Yorkshire track last week to see his boss’s hurdles debutant Spartan Army (£170k, ex-Joseph O’Brien) win impressively for Alan King. He looks a natural for the Triumph Hurdle although Gary Moore’s Leicester winner, Perseus Way, looks smart too.

As to the £1 million, Punjabi fell at Kempton before winning the Champion Hurdle. That cost owner Ray Tooth, his trainer and the stable staff a chunk of money! Were they bothered? Not once Punjabi and Barry Geraghty claimed the Festival showpiece at 33/1 they weren’t!

Finally, while we’re talking in terms of millions, congratulations to Ryan Moore who early yesterday morning won his second Japan Cup at Tokyo racecourse. Riding 7-2 third favourite, Vela Azul, a five-year-old stallion, he won the £2,593,463.46 to the winner race for trainer Kunihiko Watanabe and owners Carrot Farm Co Ltd in daring fashion. After his wonderful Breeders’ Cup meeting earlier in the month, this makes 2022 a year to treasure for the former champion.

- TS

Monday Musings: You Can’t Make ’em Drink

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You can take a horse to Ascot, but you can’t make him run, writes Tony Stafford. This November 2022 re-working of the old proverb, where opportunities are spurned by those to whom they are presented, fitted nicely into events at that most wonderful of British racecourses last weekend.

Top hats and fashion in high summer or Barbour jackets and a hot toddy as winter takes hold, are all the same to the British public, enticed by Ascot’s Royal-ness but equally by the imaginative marketing of its executive.

Often admission prices are moderated even if that doesn’t hold for the catering. I wasn’t there on Saturday and while some of the 14 equine absentees from the seven races, leaving a total to run of 30, will have gone to the track, their trainers for the most part will have made the decision not to allow valuable animals to run on ground faster than had been anticipated.

The magnet was the £615k total money on offer. The advertised amount beforehand might well have been more, but for some time now where there are fewer runners than available prizes – or indeed if non-finishers result in that happening – the old way of bumping up the winner’s prize no longer applies.

In any case, 615 grand was a fair enticement and even such as Michael Buckley, owner of the one horse everyone wanted to see on Saturday, would have liked to have picked up the £56,000 Coral Hurdle for an exhibition round by Constitution Hill.

Not so Nicky Henderson, trainer of the horse that, in three runs culminating in that scintillating 22-length demolition of stablemate Jonbon in the Supreme Novice Hurdle at Cheltenham in March, has even supplanted the unbeaten and present dual title-holder Honeysuckle in Champion Hurdle betting.

Henderson resisted the temptation of sending him on to Aintree last spring for the near guarantee of another big pot, but in hindsight, maybe the experience of connections of two more of Saturday’s elite absentees fully vindicated his decision.

Both Edwardstone, due to run in the 2m1f Hurst Park Handicap Chase (£65k to the winner) and L’Homme Presse, one of three pulled out of the Chanelle Pharma 1965 Chase, 39k; like Constitution Hill, were novice winners at the Festival.

L’Homme Presse won the Brown Advisory Chase over just a shade beyond three miles on the fifth start of a hitherto unbeaten season. Edwardstone’s coincidental fifth unbeaten run of 2021-2 came in the Arkle Challenge Trophy at the minimum trip that week.

Both, unlike the Henderson star, did go on to Aintree in April and each lost his winning sequence, Edwardstone only second to the Irish-trained Gentleman De Mee and L’Homme Presse finishing a well-beaten third of four behind Ahoy Senor.

The pair collected a few bob in defeat and brought the duo’s earnings for the season respectively to £245k (Edwardstone) and £225k for Venetia Williams’ horse. That little bit of money in the bank helped no doubt in Alan King’s and Ms Williams’ pitch to the owners that the wisest course on Saturday was to stand aside.

So far Constitution Hill has barely scratched the surface of the riches in store, those three victories amounting to £125k. But Buckley has seen it all before while Henderson still agonises about the time he allowed Altior to run in a three-horse race but a virtual match at Ascot over 2m4f. He believes adamantly that not only did it ruin Altior, but also his one serious opponent Cyrname and still regrets that he was persuaded in part by the clamour within the media for the race to be staged.

He will now need to shuffle his pack to bring the pre-Champion Hurdle lead-up for this horse, and previous winner Epatante, up to date. J P McManus’ mare has had the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle on Saturday pencilled in for her return to action, as it has for the past two years.

She won it easily in 2020 but last year had to accept a share of the prize with Hughie Morrison’s versatile toughie Not So Sleepy. With options at the top level rather limited, who is to say that the Henderson big two might not take each other on? It wouldn’t be the first time the trainer has done that.

Indeed, he allowed Constitution Hill and McManus’ Jonbon to meet, just as six years earlier Altior and J P’s Buveur D’Air crossed swords in the same Supreme Novices’ Hurdle. Altior came out comfortably on top then with his team-mate in third. Henderson was adamant after the race that he would send Altior straight over fences which he did the following autumn with extravagant success. Buveur D’Air meanwhile remained over hurdles and won the Champion Hurdle in each of the next two seasons. Obviously, the best hurdler of his era was wasting his time winning his first 14 steeplechases!

The Cyrname defeat was followed with one more win, but two further defeats suggested not only was Henderson right about Altior’s being bottomed that day at Ascot, but also that it couldn’t be justified running on Saturday as the over-efficient Ascot drainage system allied to the very low water table after the summer drought, makes for rapid changes in surfaces after rain and then dry spells.

One man’s meat – it’s ages since I used or even thought of a proverb; how about a fool and his money, etc, says Mrs S? – is another man’s opportunity. Gary Moore, king of opportunism in racing, got an unexpected dividend with stable favourite Goshen.

It was entirely in character that this man, who along with Alan King can win any type of race any time of year – there are others who we should mention, of course, in the cause of wokeness – should not balk at opposing the putative champ, even if his horse had a reputation to repair.

Clearly not enjoying his first experience of chasing last month even though it was at Ascot, his favourite track, there had to have been a chance that being smashed up by Constitution Hill would leave the sort of scar in Goshen that Henderson feared for his horse.

In the event he was left with only the three to beat in the Coral Hurdle, and you would never have thought he had been away. As to Gary Moore, he also won the main back-up race to the Betfair Chase at Haydock with the ultra-tough Botox Has. I can’t wait to see this powerful six-year-old try chases, which must surely be on the agenda in the future.

Amid all the riches on offer for the remaining Ascot 30, the 0-130 handicap hurdle for mares was worth a derisory £6,753 to the winner. But that apart, I know, it was the happy culmination of five years’ expectation and some disappointments along the road for the proprietor of this website who also happens to be the man who finds most of my many errors each week.

Coquelicot runs in the colours of Geegeez.co.uk PA, and she was winning her fifth race in 14 under a fine ride by Rex Dingle. Matt Bisogno’s sponsorship of the jockey and support for the mare’s trainer Anthony Honeyball has been as constant as the many years I’ve been penning these words.

Matt related from the winner’s circle afterwards that Saturday provided the thrill of his racing life and he sent the photo of a proud younger-looking editor holding the Soldier Of Fortune filly’s bridle right after he bought her five years ago today (Monday) for €26k at Arqana’s Autumn Mixed sale. I hope he puts it atop this week’s posting.

Coquelicot, bought as a yearling at Arqana in November 2017

Coquelicot, bought as a yearling at Arqana, November 21st 2017

 

Coquelicot and Rex Dingle win the Mariner System Mares' Handicap Hurdle in the geezgeez colours at Ascot. 19/11/2022 Pic Steve Davies/Racingfotos.com

Coquelicot and Rex Dingle win the Mariner System Mares' Handicap Hurdle in the geegeez colours at Ascot. 19/11/2022 Pic Steve Davies/Racingfotos.com

A half-sister to Melbourne Cup second and, before that, Ebor winner Hearbreak City, she has a future as a broodmare awaiting her, but plenty of winning to be done in the meantime. Matt has had lots of winners with his syndicates, but never a day like Saturday. As he says: “Didn’t those big horses run? I hadn’t noticed!” Not really folks!

The big races will be coming on apace now and on the same day as the Fighting Fifth, Newbury’s highlight is the newly-designated Coral (recently Ladbroke, same firm) Gold Cup Chase – but still, to oldies like me, the Hennessy which it was until 2017. Sam Thomas is a trainer I rate very highly, and he couples a sure touch with his plans to a degree of patience.

In former times when analysing the race, I always started with the second-season chasers, and in particular the seven-year-olds and it was scary how big a proportion of winners at the time did fit that profile.

Protektorat, whose skilled handling by the Skeltons brought a wonderful win in the Betfair Chase, by 11 lengths from Eldorado Allen, is that age, but I doubt Dan will want to send him back out even for the chance of £142k. Now there are much bigger fish to fry and maybe at last we have a proper chaser after the time of Kauto Star and Denman to see off the Irish next March.

Sam Thomas was on Denman when he won the 2007 Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup as a seven-year-old and rode him into third two years later. Ruby Walsh got on him for the second win in between. Now as a trainer, down on 10st5lb and a rating of 141 he has Our Power, a comfortable winner at Ascot three weeks ago on his return, from the useful Danny Kirwan.

Victory for him would be a tonic for Sam’s main supporter and Our Power’s part-owner, Dai Walters, who was badly injured recently in a helicopter crash when Thomas was also a passenger. It all has a ring to it. This is one horse that will go to the races and happily stop to drink in the glory.

- TS

Monday Musings: Anightinlambourn

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When the Ben Pauling-trained mare Anightinlambourn battled bravely up the Cheltenham hill to win her third chase from her last four starts for the Ben Pauling stable, it might have been seen as an omen, writes Tony Stafford. Certainly so, that is, by two handlers (unlike Ben) who train in the Valley and who had fancied later runners on that middle Saturday of the big Paddy Power Gold Cup meeting.

The first has been a licence holder for almost four decades since the 1984-5 season and, before that, assistant to a great champion for another six of his ten years’ training apprenticeship. The other, who has had his yard in Lambourn for 11 years, has spent it honing a method where jumping-bred animals are produced and developed with the principal, nay almost single-minded, aim of turning them into high-class steeplechasers.

The first of our two heroes, as heroes they are, is Oliver Sherwood, Grand National-winning trainer, and now in his late 60’s and happily free of the malignant cancer that threatened to curtail his life last year. Now the smile is back, the drawn features are a vague, lost figment of the imagination and winners are rolling again.

From an Essex farming family, Oliver is the son of hunting enthusiast Nat and brother of Simon, General Manager and Clerk of the Course at Ludlow and, for a never-to-be-forgotten while, rider of the peerless Desert Orchid, on whom he won ten races, nine in succession before the grey fell at Aintree in their last race together.

It’s almost 25 years since such as Large Action, owned by Brian Stewart-Brown, helped Sherwood onto the top table of jump trainers alongside his fellow former Fred Winter assistant, Nicky Henderson. More recently he won the 2015 Grand National with the eight-year-old Many Clouds for his main patron, the late Trevor Hemmings, Mr Aintree in succession to Ginger McCain, Red Rum’s trainer.

Halfway between those times, a young army officer was serving in Iraq, but he emerged from that experience with a resolve. Jamie Snowden had always been interested in riding and horses. It was as a serving officer that he managed to weave a reputation as the best military rider of his era. His frequent wins at the Grand Military meeting at Sandown every March made him the ideal man to trust to build a betting bank for the Cheltenham Festival the following week.

It helped that at this point he spent time as an assistant with Paul Nicholls, who provided some of the Sandown winners and he was also a prolific winner of point-to-points.

Later he joined Henderson, a while after Charlie Longsdon had left to start training and it was for Charlie that Snowden partnered the winner of the most valuable race of his riding career. He had ridden the 10-year-old gelding Kerstino Two to three wins in succession – the horse’s first three starts after coming under Longsdon’s care – and they finished in the money the next twice.

Then, on January 6, 2007, at Sandown Park, they lined up for the £25k to the winner Ladbrokespoker.com Handicap Chase. They won by three lengths with Mr J Snowden claiming five pounds making the most of that military races experience to beat the 9/4 favourite, Preacher Boy, ridden by a certain A P McCoy. Then in turn came Noel Fehily, Tom O’Brien, Seamus Durack, Ruby Walsh, Paddy Merrigan, Daryl Jacob (claiming 3lb), and Charlie Studd. Paddy Brennan, Sam Thomas and Timmy Murphy all pulled up in completing the rollcall.

Both Longsdon and Snowden had moved on by the time Ray Tooth’s Punjabi had joined Henderson and, while he was winning his Champion Hurdle and a couple of Irish Grade 1 races, Ben Pauling and Tom Symonds had filled the role as joint-assistants.

By then, Jamie, with the serious riding just about out of his system, had set up at Folly House in Upper Lambourn. By Saturday at Cheltenham, I make it he had trained a total of 335 domestic winners, and Jamie Snowden Racing Ltd has completed the clean sweep of training winners at every UK jumps course.

Win number 335 was the most valuable prize and easily the race with the biggest prestige of his career to date. It was the £90k to the winner Paddy Power Gold Cup, the feature of the entire three days, which he took with well backed 5/1 shot Ga Law.

As befits an army man, the road to the Paddy Power was planned with (almost) military precision – he did think that maybe three weeks between a comeback after 600 days off and running back in such a big race might entail the risk of the dreaded “bounce”. Well, the only bounce was the way Ga Law jumped the formidable Cheltenham fences under Johnny Burke and they had more than enough to hold off the challengers coming up the hill.

For a six-year-old on only his ninth career start, this was an exceptional performance and the French-bred gelding, like all Jamie’s carefully sourced young horses, has a pedigree to match his ability.

Johnny Burke was also on our other equine star of the show and when I say star, I have no doubt that is exactly what Queens Gamble is destined to be. She had already shown herself to be well above average on her only previous start, also at Cheltenham at the April meeting, when I think it’s fair to say she caught her trainer slightly unawares, for as he says he never fully winds up his bumper horses on their debuts.

Queens Gamble is a daughter of Getaway from a winning mare which the owners raced with Jessica Harrington. She in turn was a daughter of Hawk Wing, favourite for both the 2,000 Guineas and Derby of 2002 but second in turn to stable-mates Rock Of Gibraltar and High Chaparral, although he did win Group 1 races at two, three and four.

He didn’t produce anything like the 137-rated horse he was by the time of his retirement, but he was always slightly quirky and the fact he eventually was sent as a stallion to Korea tells its own story.

If Queens Gamble looked good last April, on Saturday the performance was even better as this is always a high class mares’ bumper. She drew easily eight lengths clear of the previous winner of the race, the unbeaten (in three) Fergal O’Brien mare Bonttay and the rest of a deep field.

As with Frankel late in Sir Henry Cecil’s career, and this year Desert Crown, the Derby winner for Sir Michael Stoute, there is no reason why Oliver Sherwood should not take charge of the best he’s had in his later years as a trainer, such is his wealth of experience and career-long success. All that’s missing really is that title!

I certainly remember calling him something in his riding days, way back in the early 1970’s. Then, the Sporting Chronicle was the northern-based racing daily in competition with the Sporting Life, the main paper in the rest of the country. Both had naps tables and I was in the Chronicle list.

Coming to the Kempton pre-Cheltenham meeting – the competition ended a few weeks later – I had a long lead in the 70-strong field, but halfway through the meeting, I thought I recognised a name of one of the winners.

The horse was called Balmer’s Combe, ridden by Oliver Sherwood. It won at 66/1 (having opened at 14’s!) and sure enough the tipster in fourth, Teddy Davis of the Chester Chronicle, had made it his nap. I only ever saw him at the big meetings and, obviously, at Chester, and it wasn’t until that May when I asked him about it.

"It was all a mistake", he said. "I was told Oliver Sherwood would have a winner that day. It was trained by Fred Winter, but then it became a non-runner. He’d picked up a spare ride on a no-hoper, trained by Richard Mitchell, so I assumed that must be the horse. There were a couple of non-runners and a few fallers, so he won!" I couldn’t hold it against Teddy who was a lovely old boy, obviously long gone; but that Sherwood!

Having expected a big run from Queens Gamble, on whom Johnny Burke didn’t need to be as vigorous as on Ga Law, I was delighted when she came up the hill clearly in a class of her own. She’s the real deal!

There was predictability about the rest of the day, notably an Irish double initiated by the well-backed Banbridge, who floated over the fences and cantered clear for Joseph O’Brien in the competitive Arkle Trial for novice chasers. Then there was a trademark gamble landed with ease by Tony Martin via Unanswered, living up to his name in a one-sided stayers’ handicap hurdle.

The Irish, as ever, are coming, but two stout Englishmen based in Lambourn will be doing their utmost to see them off this winter, in a race or two at any rate.

- TS

Monday Musings: Happy Families in Keeneland

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If you could find it possible for present-day owners and trainers of a more recent vintage than John Gosden or even in the US, Wayne Lukas, to have a blow-by-blow retrospective of the astonishing goings-on at the Keeneland Selected July Yearling sales in the 1980’s – long since abandoned in favour of augmenting the September auction - most would find plenty to shock them, writes Tony Stafford.

That decade was the era of the multi-million-dollar head-to-head battles over three days each feverishly hot summer. Although plenty of others squeezed in for the occasional lot, it was a test of strength principally between the Sangster team (Robert’s Vernon’s Pools cash; Vincent O’Brien’s exemplary training skills and John Magnier’s all-round horse expertise) and the Maktoum family members – four brothers fresh on the scene from Dubai.

It got to the stage where a single yearling sold to Sangster for 13.1 million dollars. I wasn’t in the auditorium that July, but it was possibly the year before when with the bright red legend “CRIBBER” emblazon above his lot number as he stood patiently on the stand – they don’t walk them round in Keeneland – the hammer fell on one colt at somewhere around $8 million.

I can never forget the legendary auctioneer Tom Caldwell, after recording the sale, saying: “I can officially say, that was a world-record price for a cribber!” No wonder, at any sale if they are not so designated beforehand, crib-biting is a stable vice which entitles the buyer to return the horse to its vendor.

The duels got so extreme that briefly there had to be a truce and a meeting where the Sheikh Mohammed camp and Sangster’s side agreed to consult each other rather than fight for the best ones. Nowadays that would be probable cause for a prosecution under some sort of fraud or restraint of trade law.

If ever there had been any friendly connection rather than a financial accommodation is doubtful and the Sheikh’s team quickly broke ranks.
By the time the next ownership generation of Michael Tabor and later Derrick Smith joined Magnier, Sangster having left the Coolmore ranks for Manton and sadly a relatively earth death, while Vincent O’Brien retired, replaced by the non-related Aidan O’Brien, you could detect a real enmity between the teams.

This probably was at its height at the time of the Mahmood Al Zarooni scandal, the former chief trainer for Godolphin, having usurped long-running Saeed bin Suroor in getting the best horses, was found to have doped 15 horses and was banned from training for eight years.

A story this summer revealed that Al Zarooni, now 45, was re-applying for a licence to train in Dubai and he still hopes – probably unrealistically – to have interests in the future with UK racing.

Al Zarooni states he didn’t use the banned substances while the horses were racing, just to treat various injuries. Most significant of the 15 was the 2012 St Leger winner Encke, who had denied Camelot the distinction of becoming the first horse since Vincent O’Brien’s Nijinsky in 1970 to complete the Triple Crown of 2,000 Guineas, Derby and St Leger by beating him narrowly at Doncaster. His departure left the way clear for his then assistant Charlie Appleby, to take over..

Now though, as the pictures showed after each of the Turf races at last weekend’s Breeders’ Cup meeting at Keeneland’s up-market race track, even if the old days of no race commentaries are long gone, the two main ownership groups in European racing are far from enemies.
I think I ought to modify that conclusion. When a Charlie Appleby-trained Godolphin horse wins a major race as three did at Keeneland, almost the first to congratulate him is Aidan O’Brien. Equally, the Coolmore owners – notably Michael Tabor – have warmed to Charlie and possibly for the first time, a Team Europe vibe was emanating from the winners’ circle.

On Friday as first Mischief Magic, for Godolphin (Juvenile Turf Sprint) and then Coolmore’s Meditate (Juvenile Fillies’ Turf) put the home challenge to bed emphatically, the two teams were seen exchanging congratulations.

The Godolphin ownership group was pretty much limited to Hugh Anderson, the group’s Chief Operating Officer and there was no sign of a Maktoum in the leafy paddock, where four decades ago the brothers used to scour the barns at the sales with such dedication.

Then when Ryan Moore on Victoria Road just edged out newly crowned UK champion jockey William Buick on Silver Knott by a nose in the Juvenile Turf, the respective greetings revealed just how much respect Messrs O’Brien and Appleby have for each other.

Three more winners on Saturday, the remarkable Modern Games for the second successive year in the Mile for Appleby/Buick; the Oaks winner Tuesday in the Filly and Mare Turf for O’Brien (Moore) and finally Rebel’s Romance, a four-year-old gelding for Appleby and James Doyle in the £4 million Turf over one and a half miles, showed them to be if not a team – a duopoly of mutual respect and friendship. The three winning jockeys are equally great friends as are Doyle’s mum Jacqui and Appleby’s mother Patricia, the pair often inseparable at the big meetings in the UK.

All that family affection left us with the Main course after some very tasty appetisers which I’m sure plenty of people afterwards missed celebrating with dinner in The Mansion, sadly now closed. That was Flightline, the horse we caught up with a month or so ago and now winner by eight and a half lengths in the Classic.

There have been some high-cost sacrificial objects in the history of horse racing but surely none has come close to Life Is Good, third favourite behind Flightline, the 4-9 favourite, a price that was pretty good value in the circumstances.

Winner by an average of 12 lengths through his five career starts, Flightline sat second on the flank of Life Is Good, himself a winner of nine of his 11 lifetime races before Saturday. Trainer Todd Pletcher was adamant his colt would race in his usual attacking fashion, and while the rest of the field set off a long way behind, Flightline and jockey Flavien Prat never wavered from trainer John Sadler’s plan.

In the straight they pulled alongside and with just a minimal adjustment in Prat’s urgings, he was away and gone. No Secretariat, but then again that great champion of the 1970’s had already ground the main opposition to dust before beating Sham by 31 lengths in the Belmont Stakes in 1973. Life Is Good faded to fifth in the closing stages. A more measured ride behind the favourite probably would have earned him the million-dollar second prize.

Now I need to recall an episode while staying for a few days in Virginia Payson’s – St Jovite’s owner’s - house on the shores of Long Island, New York. I was introduced during a well-attended racing and breeding-oriented party one night, thus. “Tony, this is Penny Chenery”. I can still picture her sitting demurely behind a desk. As Virginia moved away and we exchanged pleasantries, I asked: “Didn’t you own a good horse?”

“Oh, you must mean Secretariat!”

Can you imagine the embarrassment?

Well maybe Flightline isn‘t quite Secretariat, but on limited evidence – six runs for him against 21 (and 16 wins) in just 16 months for Big Red, with a Triple Crown, two Horse of the Year accolades and a world record time for a mile and a half in that iconic Belmont Stakes – he may not be that far off.

In those days, breeders tended to restrict stallions to around 40 mares a year. The top flat-race sires, even with the short covering season, nowadays can get close to 200, so with the chance of half a million a pop at least, the Flightline owners can expect to cop $100 million a year, as long as he is fertile, for everyone will want to come to see him at Will Farish’s Lane’s End farm, down the road from Keeneland, and try to produce a replica. I would still have preferred him to race on and truly prove his greatness against all-comers, but the decision to retire him had been made.

As an aside, what happened to the Japanese this year? Just Chain Of Love, well beaten in the Filly and Mare Sprint, for the land of the rising sun after their heroics last year.

Racing did continue over here where the most interesting happening was Mick Channon’s last day double, not just the last day of the 2022 turf season in the UK but the final day of Mick’s training career.

The former Southampton and England footballer can be counted as the most successful graduate from his initial sport to switch to training racehorses and over the 32 years he held a licence he sent out more than 2,500 flat winners in the UK and many more overseas as well as plenty over jumps.

He was unlucky not to win the Arc as his gallant horse Youmzain was successively second to Dylan Thomas - part-owner Michael Tabor believes he should have been disqualified in 2007; to the astonishing Zarkava as a five-year-old, and to Sea The Stars in a field of 19 in 2009.
Mick’s retirement leaves the way clear for younger son Jack to take over the famous West Ilsley yard, previously the base for the great Dick Hern and champions like Brigadier Gerard, Nashwan and Dayjur, possibly the UK’s unluckiest-ever Breeders’ Cup loser.

Jack was one of a dozen or so students on the latest BHA trainers’ module at the Racing School in Newmarket the week before last. Like several of his fellow students, he had to plead temporary absence to watch the stable’s horses go through the ring at the Tattersalls HIT sale that same week.

He shared the course – his final module as he’d done the first two, six then two years before – with AJ O’Neill, son of Jonjo and destined to share the licence at Jackdaw’s Castle with dad in the future, and Sean Quinn, son of John, the Malton trainer.

Others were Harry Derham, the latest aiming to exchange assistant trainer status with Paul Nicholls to a yard of his own in the future. One predecessor, Harry Fry, switched from jumps to the flat at Doncaster to win the November Handicap easily with Metier. Nicholls’ favourite bloodstock agent, Tom Malone, was also there, when not required to bid on one down the road at Tatts.

It was a shame that Saffron Beach was unable to take her place at the Breeders’ Cup, but her part-owner Ollie Sangster will not have minded too much as he starts training from Manton imminently having safely concluded his final module. He found time to skip school to acquire one or two from the horses in training sale to join the squad of regally-bred yearlings he picked up earlier in October.

Finally, Siobhan Doolan, daughter of former Irish jump jockey Kevin and granddaughter of my pal Wilf Storey, was also there, taking time off from her job as an underwriter in bloodstock insurance. She also found time to buy at the sale, picking up the three-year-old filly Shifter, a winner for Stuart Williams. Shifter has settled in at Grange Farm Stables in Co Durham and I bet, like Going Underground, a recent winner and then so unlucky last Friday at Newcastle, she will win before long!

As I said at the start. This racing game is all about family!

- TS

Monday Musings: Down Under

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Last week I made a couple of trips to Newmarket sales where I marvelled at the seemingly never-ending stream of - mainly overseas - buyers keen to pick up second-hand UK and Irish thoroughbreds, writes Tony Stafford. Not just pick them up, but happy to pay handsomely for them.

The Australians set the pace and it was just two days after the Tattersalls Autumn Horses in Training sale ended with record receipts that the penny finally dropped.

As I waited for the afternoon’s high-class jumping at Ascot and Wetherby and Newmarket’s final day’s action of 2022 with a couple of Listed races, to begin, I had a quick look at the early results.  Two Australian venues had been in operation, Flemington in Melbourne and Rosehill in Sydney as far as the newspaper was concerned – there are umpteen tracks going on Down Under all the time at a lower level of course that we never hear about.

There were results for nine races at Flemington, many of them Group events including two at G1 level, with the Victoria Derby and its first prize of £736k leading the way. The total of winners’ prizes alone, in Racing Post monetary calculation, was an eye-watering £2,360,000 so the total value of the races as the Spring Carnival continued, with the highlight being the Melbourne Cup tomorrow, would have been nearer £5 million.

The Post carried only three results from Rosehill, but the main race of the day, the XXXX Golden Eagle over seven furlongs, carried a full field of 20 runners. It comprised 18 Southern Hemisphere four-year-olds and two Northern Hemisphere three-year-olds having their first runs in Australia and accompanied to ride them by Jamie Spencer and Frankie Dettori.

The winner was a gelding called I Wish I Win (wishes can come true!), trained by Peter Moody, who had bought into the horse after his first three races (no wins) and ridden by Luke Nolen. The jockey, of course, is best known here for his narrow Royal Ascot win on Black Caviar ten years ago when he gave the great mare’s many backers a scare before getting the verdict, and he was again enjoying the best of a desperate finish at Rosehill Gardens.

Second, a nose behind, was the filly Fangirl, trained by Chris Waller and ridden by Hugh Bowman, the team behind the great Winx, who had by all accounts a successful birth recently after some difficult experiences at stud since her retirement from the track.

Talking about Royal Ascot, I had sat next to Waller at lunch a couple of hours before his outstanding sprinter Nature Strip obliterated the opposition in the King’s Stand Stakes on the opening day of the meeting. This was the 21st victory of his then 40-race career. He has won and been third in two more big sprints at home since returning to action this Australian spring.

The difference between victory and defeat has rarely been as stark as in this race, especially considering the cigarette paper thin margin. The winner’s prize was a massive £2,833,333 – second got £1,075,268, not bad but almost £2 million less than the winner! As to how Messrs Spencer and Dettori got on, Jamie will have been content with his sixth place, beaten barely two lengths on the former David Simcock-trained Light Infantry. Sixth prize was £94,086 for the colt now trained by the team of Ciaron Meyer and Englishman David Eustace.

Third to fifth were respectively £537,634, £268,817 and £134,408. Dettori was seventeenth on Welwas, previously with Jean-Claude Rouget in France. He and the trio finishing behind him, still picked up £5,376, more than the winners of the opening two-year-old maidens at Newmarket on Saturday and comfortably more than any of the seven Wolverhampton all-weather contests that evening.

Total money for the one race was a remarkable £5,270,000. The winner got almost half a million quid more than tomorrow’s Melbourne Cup hero, but there are umpteen European connections in the race that stops the nation. I make it that half the horses in the 24-runner line-up have emanated from the UK mostly, France or Ireland, and the favourite at 5/2 is trained by James Ferguson, son of former Godolphin king pin and now agent, John, and in just his third full season with a licence.

Ferguson’s representative is Deauville Legend, winner last time out of the Great Voltigeur Stakes at York. Again, one of only two three-year-olds in the field, he will be trying to emulate the 2018 winner, Cross Counter, trained by Charlie Appleby, who beat Hughie Morrison’s Marmelo after running a close second in the same York race that Deauville Legend won.

One familiar name is the five-year-old gelding Serpentine, two years after his surprise Derby win for Aidan O’Brien and Coolmore. Now a gelding, he ran a good second in a minor prep race at Flemington on Saturday. He carries 3lb less than the favourite!

We mentioned the other three-year-old, Hoo Ya Mal, last week. The Derby second to Desert Crown was sold for £1.2 million at the boutique Kensington Gardens auction on the eve of Royal Ascot. From then until his dispatch to Australia, Hoo Ya Mal was in the care of George Boughey, tasked to handle the colt’s preparation after the sale until his departure.

Occupants of properties in a town with restricted accommodation can be a moving feast. I’m pretty sure though that eight of tomorrow’s field are trained by young men (including Boughey), generally assistant trainers at the time, who shared a house owned in Newmarket by George Scott a few years back.

Boughey, Ed Crisford, Ferguson and the brothers David and Harry Eustace were all at one time common tenants in Scott’s house. Harry Eustace, 22 winners on his card this year on only his second full season, is not involved tomorrow save cheering on his brother, but the others are.

Crisford junior trains, with father Simon, the other long-time former Godolphin mainstay. He, unlike Ferguson senior, still has plenty to say in that operation although none of the father-son duo’s horses are in Godolphin ownership. Their runner, Without A Fight, is a five-year-old gelding, winner of seven of his 17 starts. He is a son of Teofilo, as was Cross Counter.

That takes us to three, but step forward David Eustace, elder son of former dual purpose trainer James. He and his co-trainer, the extravagantly attired Ciaron Maher, have five representatives in the line-up, one more than last year when fourth and sixth places earned £275k for the stable’s owners.

One man determined to be there was Richard Ryan, racing manager for Teme Valley, fresh from the win of Bayside Boy, owned in partnership with Ballylinch Stud, at 33/1 in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes on Champions Day at Ascot.

Requiring to be in Berkshire prevented Ryan’s presence in Australia for Numerian’s prep race in the Caulfield Cup in which he was a close fifth. Numerian, once with Joseph O’Brien, is now in the care of Annabel Neasham, one of the main buyers at last week’s sale. When asked whether she had an owner for one of her expensive acquisitions, she suggested there might be 200 potential owners champing at the bit! I bet some of her counterparts at Newmarket found that hard to take.

After Melbourne, of course, it’s off to the Breeders’ Cup at Keeneland, far from the favourite venue for my friend Harry Taylor who prefers some Californian heat at Santa Anita. Sorry mate, at least you have the chance to see the astonishing Flightline in the Classic. Baaeed’s fall from grace in the Champion Stakes at Ascot leaves the way clear for a coronation, US style, late on Saturday. It’s being shown on ITV 3 on both Friday and Saturday and will be well worth waiting up for. [The Classic is due off at 9.40pm, so not too late - Ed.]

The American horses trying, in vain most likely, to match Flightline in the Classic are being left to their own devices, and in the other dirt races, too, apart from some Japanese challenges. But in the turf contests they will hard pressed to keep the lid on what looks like a stronger European challenge than for some time. Kinross and Modern Games set a decent standard in the Mile, while Charlie Appleby looks to have a stranglehold on the Turf with Nations Pride and Rebel's Romance heading the market.

I pass on a humorous note about one rider going off to the meeting with an obvious chance. Jason Hart, who rode Safe Voyage at Keeneland in 2020, is pleased to take that experience with him for his ride on the remarkable Highfield Princess in the Turf Sprint. The three-time Group 1 winning five-year-old vies for favouritism with Wesley Ward’s speedball Golden Pal.

Hart won last week at Newcastle on the Wilf Storey-trained Going Underground, delighting owner Herbert Hutchinson in the process. When told Hart would be unable to ride him at Newcastle this Friday night as he was going to the US, Mr H asked can we not claim him? Afraid not Herbert, you’ll have to make do with Kevin Stott!

- TS

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